Read more
Informationen zum Autor Suzanne Young is the New York Times bestselling author of The Program series. Originally from Utica, New York, Suzanne moved to Arizona to pursue her dream of not freezing to death. She is a novelist and an English teacher, but not always in that order. Suzanne is also the author of Girls with Sharp Sticks , All in Pieces , Hotel for the Lost , and several other novels for teens. Visit her online at AuthorSuzanneYoung.com or follow her on Instagram at @AuthorSuzanneYoung. Klappentext When Tatum's boyfriend, Weston, loses his memories of her in The Program, they decide to undergo The Adjustment, where Tatum's memories of their time together are implanted into Weston's mind, but trouble lies ahead when Weston's emotions do not match the experiences. Leseprobe The Adjustment CHAPTER ONE I CAN’T REMEMBER THE LAST time I cried. It’s an odd thought to have in the middle of English class, but for years the threat of being taken, against our will, to a facility for memory manipulation had terrified all of us. Any moment of weakness, one show of emotion, and we could have been flagged as unstable. Once flagged, we would have been handed over to The Program, where the doctors would steal our memories, our experiences, and our lives—all in the name of their false cure. I barely escaped that fate. But it turns out that although The Program no longer exists, its effect is long lasting. I stare ahead in class at the whiteboard, the words there blurring together. Around me, pencils scratch against notebook pages and the movement of other bodies mimics learning. I sit still and apart from all of them. I’d gotten used to small classes, some with as few as twelve students. But now we’re pushing thirty in here. Former patients of The Program have been flooding in—wide eyed and confused. I mostly feel bad for them. They’ve been erased, some only partially. Months ago, when The Program was shut down, there was no follow-up therapy offered to its patients. Many were sent uncompleted, uncured, to Sumpter High, a private school just for those who were treated: a school filled with broken people. Returners were left to their own devices, and some didn’t make it. Some didn’t want to. But as the criminal trials carried on in the media, The Program decimated and supporting politicians questioned and shamed, Sumpter was shut down. One senator filed an injunction to ban returners from our district, citing the possibility of another suicide outbreak. As a result, students were left for weeks with nowhere to go—abandoned by their government. But that asshole politician got voted out of office, so returners have come back to the lives they had before The Program. Now that their lives have been thoroughly ruined by The Program. Even now, former patients still occasionally freak out. Break down. Crack up. To them, The Program is forever. I glance around at the other students in my class, some dressed in black, dark and dramatic. Others even wear Program yellow ironically. Some say their emotions are heightened now that we’re suddenly allowed to “feel” again—built-up angst and anger getting release. Lust and love intertwining so that no one knows the difference anymore. Everything is about now. Everything is about living. But not me. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to feel—always set to numb. I wonder how many others are just mimicking what they think is sadness. What they think is joy. What if The Program took away our ability to feel by making us hide it for so long? What if none of us is real? I shouldn’t sit here feeling sorry for myself, though. Not when there are those worse off. I look si...
