Allanah lives in a world where every immoral decision a person makes will instantly change their physical appearance. Even something as seemingly trivial as pushing somebody off a swing results in a blemish appearing on the perpetrator’s skin. Recidivists have the worst skin of all: “As if they’d contracted some kind of leprosy caused by being bad.” Those who are always good remain clear-skinned, and those who try to be good at least get the chance to repair their skin bit by bit as their behavior improves. A person’s crimes and misdemeanors are literally written on their faces. Young Allanah has to tread carefully. As she states, “I wanted to be good and beautiful and obedient and helpful to those around me. But at the same time, whenever I heard a list of rules, I took it as a challenge—not to break them, but to find a legal way around the technical details.” As Allanah leaves high school to start an internship on a pop culture magazine, she finds that being constantly on the hunt for a loophole will lead her into dangerous areas.

There’s a terrific opening chapter in this debut YA novel by Alex Hugie. Within its first few pages, the author establishes his character and the neat premise of the world in which events are taking place. That sounds like a pretty straightforward aim for the beginning of a novel, but it’s a difficult thing to achieve in reality. Hugie writes with great skill and humor, the first-person narration of young Allanah is instantly arresting, and the fantastical, dystopian gimmick of immediate retribution for moral missteps is coherent and believable. Readers will be hooked from the first paragraph.

This isn’t really a fantasy novel, nor is it sci-fi. Allanah’s world is recognizably contemporary. Hugie introduces a cast of very well-drawn supporting characters, and is always right on top of his material. The mechanics of “Visage,” the name given to the condition that changes the skin, will be probed by Allanah as the plot plays out. Is it really as simple as she is led to believe?—that good deeds breed beauty, while bad deeds bring ugliness? How could that work? There are a few sections that slightly drag the pace, but for the most part following Allanah’s investigation is a thrill.

LOOPHOLE, the debut YA novel by Alex Hugie, is well-paced, packed with action, and works as a sophisticated allegory: a moral conundrum tackling issues of freedom and control.

~Kent Lane for IndieReader