The writing for this novella is far too heavy-handed for a middle grade read. Had this been shelved as young adult, or even adult, perhaps it would have felt more appropriate, but still the narrative was just delivered too bluntly. There was a desperate lack of nuance. The characters do not seem appropriately written for their ages and the concepts handled are delivered in an overly intense way. There was a lot of potential for the concept and the world, but it felt like a lot of the opportunities were missed. What resulted was my not really caring about the characters and truly losing interest in the story. Unfortunately, I would give this one a pass.