">Megan Beach's Operation Cleanup is an impressive dystopian novel that outmatches other recent entries in the genre with its emotional depth. While other novels focus heavily on critiques of a flawed, conformist society (which this author also does beautifully), Beach emphasizes the human toll taken by authoritarianism. Through the eyes of its young people, Beach’s story of rebellion against an oppressive dystopian world shines an especially bright beacon of hope for the future.

Oliver and his sister Olivia are on the run after the emperor's enforcers, the regulators, storm their orphanage. Deemed "unworthies" by the state, their lives are in constant jeopardy as they search for food, clothing, and a safe place to sleep. In the city, a uniform population walks in eerily mechanical patterns and enthusiastically cheers the removal of anyone identified as nonconformist. But when Oliver and Olivia are discovered by a group of fellow teenagers, other unworthies connected to a growing movement called The Uprising, they are welcomed into a cause that supports individuality and denounces the authoritarian horrors of the emperor's megalomaniacal government.

What follows is a powerful tale of love, loss, connection, trauma, and deep faith as these teens commit themselves to standing against tyrannical powers. Beach has crafted a moving portrait of fascism's direct and indirect consequences in the lives of young people. These characters experience the loss of home, the deaths of friends and loved ones, and the call to put themselves through harrowing episodes of violence in order to survive and shape a better tomorrow. As her introduction indicates, Beach has an intimate knowledge of how a broken society's youths suffer the repercussions of unchecked violence. And the novel reverberates with palpable realism as a result.

Beach's prose is accessible yet sophisticated. Her scenes, both those of tranquil stability and those of action-packed suspense, are carefully paced and authentic. Beach is an author with a clear sense of how teenage characters would feel, react, make decisions, and be forever changed by powerful episodes of danger. She places tremendous, justified confidence in the willpower and conviction of teenagers to take action when faced with improbable odds. And, leaning heavily into a vision of resilient (and frankly, pretty darn punk) Christianity as a motivating force for putting down evil oligarchies, Beach makes a strong case for faith’s potential contributions to anti-fascism.

Operation Cleanup is a must-read for fans of writers like Suzanne Collins, John Dashner, or Lois Lowry. But the novel clearly does something unique as a work from this particular author. Beach’s lived experience of violence, loss, and trauma has produced a work of fiction that feels rawer, more real than anything we’ve encountered before.