The Bar Code series is back for its third and final
installment with THE BAR CODE PROPHECY, a thought-provoking
and chilling tale for the young adult reader in your life.
This book is told in the viewpoint of new character Grace, a
seventeen year-old on the verge of getting her mandatory bar
code tattoo. In the previous books (which I recommend
reading before this one), Kayla Reed and her band of bar
code resisters have revealed Global-1's treachery in trying
to purify and improve the human race by secretly playing
with genetics and forcing everyone to get the tattoo which
contains their genetic code. If there are any diseases or
imperfections in your code, Global-1 would activate nanobots
in your bloodstream that will kill you. Even though Grace's
story is the focus in THE BAR CODE PROPHECY, Kayla and the
other tattoo resisters are still prominent secondary
characters.
Grace and many others in the world now believe that
Global-1 has removed the genetic codes and nanobots from all
the older bar code tattoos previously given and claim that
the conspiracy was due to a few extremist scientists in
their labs. After Grace gets her tattoo, she finds her
family missing and receives help from Kayla and her group of
resisters. On the run from Global-1, who has placed a
tracking code within her tattoo, Grace isn't sure who to
trust or even why Global-1 is after her. She learns that she
is adopted and the daughter of the creator of the Global-1
corporation, and at the heart of a Hopi prophecy of the end
of days.
THE BAR CODE PROPHECY is a quick read for a younger
teen. There are some serious issues of corporate control and
environmental awareness as well as a global catastrophe that
occurs, causing many people to die. Although there is some
small resolutions to the story at large, if your teen is
sensitive or if the reader is younger than high school age,
this book might not be appropriate. There is mild romance to
the story that is appropriate for any age. The
characterization seemed rather thin and perhaps it was
because of the short length of the book and appearance of
numerous others in the story. There are some inconsistencies
of the science in the storyline, but as this is a science
fiction/fantasy novel, I could suspend my disbelief while
reading. Overall, I think the author Suzanne Weyn has done a
good job in creating a short novel that will make the
younger teen think about global issues and how to make a
difference.
The third book in the Bar Code series, in which one girl
struggles to escape the conformity of a dystopian world.
Just as in the original Bar Code Tattoo, the year is 2025
and the mysterious, ubiquitous, and seemingly omnipotent
multi-national corporation, Global 1, is in power through
their agent President Loudon Waters. But now this ominous
situation is experienced through the eyes of sixteen-year-
old Grace Morrow.
When Grace finds out that she's adopted, her biological
father, who's the head of the Global 1 nano-bot injection
project, urges her against getting the bar code tattoo when
she turns seventeen. Stunned by the revelations, she goes
home to find her adoptive family vanished, and she's
determined to find them, turning to the anti-bar-code group
Decode. As they uncover more information about tracking,
Grace must hide deep underground and under cover, trying to
discover information that will allow Decode to figure out
what Global 1 is up to, and trying desperately to shut the
organization down for good.