When Freedom and Safety Run into Each Other

Eventually, I want to be consistent with this blog, which means I’ll post twice a week. Obviously, I’m saying that because I missed a Book Blurt post last Wednesday. As we all know, being consistent often means making times for the things that are important. If they aren’t a priority, they normally won’t get done. So to remain consistent, these blog posts need to become priorities for me. So, here’s to consistency. Rash by Pete Hautman is the topic of this week’s post. My sister read this book a little bit before I did. I was trying to get some YouTube videos on my YouTube channel, so I used Animoto to make a quick video about the book. Turns out that Pete Hautman actually saw my video, and posted it to his personal blog. That obviously made my week. It took me a while to get a chance to read it, but now I have, and can say that it is a good one.

The book follows Bo Marsten, a junior in High School, who lives in the United Safer States of America. The book happens in a time several years in the future, when football, french fries, and drinking are illegal because they are too dangerous. Anyone who does something too unsafe is put into a labor prison camp. As it turns out, the vast majority of work in the USSA is done by inmates in these labor camps. Road rage, instead of just being a personal problem, can now land you five years in a labor camp. That is what happened to Bo’s dad, Bo’s brother, and as the book opens, it is about to happen to Bo as well. Bo lets his jealousy for a girl lead him to punch a guy in the face, and that is enough to put him away. When Bo gets to the Alaskan prison camp with near Siberian conditions, he finds that it is an entirely different world behind bars. Anyone who is good enough plays football for the enjoyment of the manager of the prison camp. Bo is given no pads even though on the outside he had to wear pads to run a race, let alone play football, an illegal sport. After breaking out of the prison camp, Bo obviously has a hard time fitting back into a world that is so regulated and focused on safety even to the point of ridiculousness.

This book is a satire of the ultimate end of the question, “would you give up your freedoms to be safe?” The citizens of the USSA have done just that. They subject themselves to forced labor if they cross the smallest infraction because they want to feel “safe” from “dangerous” things like football and road rage. The satire is completed by the realistic details that Hautman adds to the story. What big organizations would be in charge of these labor camps in the future? What would the pledge of allegiance sound like? The realistic hypothetical future coupled with the questions of freedom versus safety make for a very interesting read.