Reviewed by Kim Anisi for Readers' Favorite

I Town by Timothy Koch is set in an era after the Carbon Nation (which is us) collapsed, and energy is something very expensive and hard to acquire. I Town is the place where electricity is generated by people walking in giant hamster wheels (that's not what they are called, but it kind of evokes that image) day and night. The society is split into two groups: the Walkers, which comprises basically heavy-set people who weigh enough to walk on the wheels and earn their money that way, and the Dims, short for diminutives, who don't weigh enough and have to get by in other ways, e.g. by selling items to the Walkers that add to their weigh-in weight. The more you weigh, the better the row you get on will be. And the better the row, the more you earn. So every pound is valuable for a Walker, which also means that their diet is less than healthy. Jackson, a Dim, earns a box of books by performing an illegal action for Mr Myrtle, a rather shady character. He starts selling and renting those books to the Walkers to earn a living, but it all leads to trouble when he rents a book to Shevi, a Walker engaged to one of the more important families. From that moment on, he gets into one unfortunate situation after the other, while his new friend learns how unjust and unhealthy the society truly is. Jackson and Shevi are bound together by strong emotions - and of course that also leads to trouble. Maybe fatal trouble.

I found I Town by Timothy Koch to be a quite enthralling book and read it within just a couple of days as it was hard to put down. Even though Jackson and Shevi come from two different sections of society, and are in love with each other, I would not describe it as a Romeo and Juliet story. After all, both of them don't really want to believe in their feelings because they just mean trouble, or even worse. There also isn't much romance in the book, apart from the last chapter or so. It is a book that shows how unjust a society can be, and how two individuals have to face it and maybe change it. It moves along at a nice pace and easily keeps the attention of the reader. The characters are easy to like and dislike (Mr Myrtle is someone you really can't help disliking a lot). The concept of the wheels and the whole concept of I Town could have used a bit more explaining (some sketches, diagrams of structures etc. would be good). I sometimes struggled following the layout of the place, but apart from that reading the book was a really enjoyable experience.