Book Review: The Boy Who Learned to Live

Reviewed by Eric Mayrhofer

A visceral dystopian tale about the fight to live a full, free life

Dystopias are rich landscapes where writers can plant hope. Submerged in simulations, for example, we can wake up and plunge into a struggle for reality, like Neo in The Matrix. For some, that could be the life worth fighting for. For others, it could be virtual, as it is for Wade Watts in Ready Player One. What it means to truly live is a conundrum, one tackled head-on in the YA dystopian novel The Boy Who Learned to Live. 

Readers follow Oliver Mc’Neil, a 17-year-old in the year 2085. By this time, 15 cities hold all of humanity, and Oliver lives in the 5th City. Or does he? That’s up for debate. 

The book opens with kidnappers dumping him beyond the city limits, where a girl named Autumn finds him and brings him home with her to heal. Then there’s the question the title implies: is Oliver really living?

The book’s answer is a resounding “no.” Before being stolen from the city, Oliver was drugged beyond belief—“You’re all on medication,” Autumn tells him while he detoxes—and fed lies: lies that airborne illnesses are running amok, requiring them to stay inside as much as possible, and asking them to go about daily life in a virtual reality “sims” life that was supposed to keep humanity safe. As a result, Oliver has only ever played sports in VR. He knows about things sims taught him, but he has no actual, physical experiences.

Starting there, the book follows Oliver as he forges bonds with found family,   discovers fulfillment through a hard day’s work, and feels the pangs of romance. Everything he builds could crumble, though, when threats emerge from beyond the pastoral oasis he’s found—and when he unearths memories of his own unspeakable acts.

The book’s contrast between sun-bright hope and intense, violent shocks are compelling elements that make this story leap from the page. The Boy Who Learned to Live abounds with simple yet deep scenes that wouldn’t feel out of place in Anne of Green Gables. They’re passages to savor. A particular favorite of mine is when Oliver learns to handle Ginger, a friend’s horse. After accidentally spooking her, he tries to apologize, but:

“She was ignoring me…Girls, I thought. They sure do know how to make a guy suffer.

“It was as if she heard me. Her head came around and she showed me both her eyes.

“‘I’m sorry, girl,’ I muttered as I rubbed her neck. ‘I have a lot of learning to do.

“And suddenly, all was forgiven. It was that easy.”

It’s a sweet interaction that continues Oliver’s journey of becoming a real boy, so to speak, while also teaching him how to have relationships built on forgiveness and trust. This book shines by finding peace in the wasteland, then turning it on its head with violent, visceral surprises.

The cities rarely inflict the violence, though, despite being the overarching menace. As far as I can tell, that’s by design. The most threatening weapons the cities’ stormtrooper equivalents have are stun guns. But for a book unafraid to slice its protagonist in barbed wire, have him spend time enduring withdrawal, and force him into life-threatening animal encounters, making the villains less threatening than the terrain—nevermind a Colt-toting Oliver—may frustrate some readers when they reach scenes intended to be threatening.

Instead, the dampened threat made me wonder, “What makes the cities frightening?”  Like many dystopias, the surface-level answer is control. The cities want to dominate what people believe about the outside world (that it’s germ-ridden), and dictate what Oliver thinks about himself (that he’s a bad person). By itself, though, the desire for control isn’t terrifying. What makes it scary is the motivation, and that is the most elusive part of the book.

There are hints, though. When Oliver and his friends hear that a character’s parents died of pneumonia in the city, they say, “So much for this ‘better life’ in the city. ‘The commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts.” When Oliver wonders why he, Autumn, and their free community can’t live above ground (most of them live in an intricate network of caves), he’s told that there are too many of them—almost as many people as there are in the cities. “Even though we have no trained armies, no technology, and no interest in fighting, they know how deadly a group like ours is to their system…We just want to be left alone to live according to our own choices.”

Together, these and other little clues give the impression that cities’ unseen powers think their vision of living is better, and so they’re out to beat down the homespun heroes who just want the innocent, good old days again.

The book has a clear idea of a real, fulfilling life: open sky, agrarian simplicity, a step back from technology’s complications. The cities’ vision, however, isn’t as clearly drawn. It makes it difficult for readers to believe their harsher tactics are necessary. It also raises the question of whether the technological lifestyle, sans dystopian trappings, is bad, or merely a life someone else prefers?

It’s a question worth grappling with, and The Boy Who Learned to Live makes it one worth exploring for its quiet moments, its shocking turns, and the big questions it will leave you with long after finishing.

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