New York City is definitely one of a kind. The most iconic thing about the city is its sprawling skyscrapers, ranging from the classic Empire State Building to the One World Trade Center. The skyscrapers are the city’s signature, solidifying its status as one of the most eclectic and intriguing cities in the world.
Katherine McGee’s “The Thousandth Floor” shatters all that one thinks of the Big Apple, within the first few pages. In her version of dystopian NYC, there’s only one thing that makes the city stand out: A massive 1000-floor tower in which the entire city is contained. The tower has everything ranging from homes to the new Central Park, malls aquariums to helicopter systems for transport. It’s the entirety of the city encapsulated within a single building. Anything outside the tower is usually occupied by the poorest of the poor, and the buildings are decrepit and poorly maintained.
The prologue of the book gave me literal chills the first time I read it. The last few sentences are quite haunting:
“…all he knew was that the girl was the first person to fall from the Tower in its twenty-five years. He didn’t know who she was, or how she’d gotten outside. He didn’t know whether she’d fallen, or been pushed, or whether—crushed by the weight of unspoken secrets—she’d decided to jump….”
The book is narrated from the POV of multiple characters, each from different strata of the Tower’s society. Each of the narrators is unique in their own way, but yet all intertwined into the story’s plot.
There’s Avery Fuller- a girl genetically modified to fit into society’s beauty standards. She’s witty and compassionate, and lives on the penthouse on the thousandth floor of the tower. Though at first glance, it appears as if she has everything she’d ever want, she wants only one thing, which ironically is forbidden.
There’s Leda Cole, Avery’s best friend, another rich kid who is lured into the web of drugs- drugs initially taken recreationally, and as a performance booster for academics, but which eventually turns into a near overdose. She’s dealing with a lot of drama of her own, for which she’d get into major trouble with Avery, if she ever found out.
Another stereotypical rich kid is Eris Dodd-Radson, whose life falls to pieces when her family is torn apart by a DNA test. All the luxury she’s known her entire life, is taken away in a flash.
Some of the characters who are more middle-class include Watt Bakradi- a tech genius. He’s hiding a supercomputer that shouldn’t exist, in his brain, and lives a relatively normal life, until he’s called to spy for one of the rich kids. He too is soon drawn into the girls’ complicated web of lies.
Finally, there’s Rylin Myers who is pulled into a job on one of the highest floors, but this job comes with its own consequences.
The haunting lines of the prologue set the stage for the entire novel, where the book explores the actions of these teenagers, which led to that tragedy. Though the actions of the protagonists initially seem very disjoint, as they are all from different economic strata, the plot carefully intertwines all of their lives together. There’s also the lingering doubt that the girl who had fallen to her death could’ve been one of the narrators, which makes the entire read exhilarating. The message of the book is crystal clear though: no kind of technological advancements can ever counter jealousy, desire and other human instincts. As glamorous as the entire book as, it definitely gets one thing right: The higher you are, the farther you fall.