

However, he eventually agrees to make emergency “earthquake” packs and set up a nightly neighborhood watch. Joanne is skeptical and accuses Lauren of reading “too many adventure stories.” Joanne tells her mother about this conversation, which causes Lauren’s father to have a stern conversation with her.

Lauren admits that she doesn’t think the neighborhood will be secure for much longer and that she has been reading books to help her prepare for survival. Joanne comes over for lunch in Lauren’s room, and the two discuss the future of the neighborhood. The next day, Lauren learns that Amy has been shot dead by someone shooting through the neighborhood gate. Lauren shoots the dog and almost collapses from the pain. The group encounter a feral dog Lauren’s best friend, Joanne Garfield, panics. Peter is the son of Richard Moss, a “total shit” with three wives who practices his own highly patriarchal religion, a mix of West African traditions and Old Testament teachings. Lauren goes to target practice along with her boyfriend Curtis Talcott and his brother Michael, as well as Peter Moss. Lauren doesn’t trust the Payne-Parrish family. Sims’ cousins Wardell Parrish and Rosalee Payne move into her empty house. Amy is the product of incestuous rape her mother, Tracy, was only 12 when she became pregnant with her. Christopher Donner wins the election.Ī year later, in 2025, a three-year-old girl in the neighborhood called Amy Dunn sets fire to her family’s garage. Sims, a devoutly Christian woman in Lauren’s neighborhood, has killed herself even though she believes suicide is punished by hell. One of the presidential candidates, Christopher Donner, has vowed to eradicate the space program in order to save money, but Lauren believes that space is the future. Meanwhile, an astronaut named Alicia Leal has died on a mission to Mars. She suffers from hyperempathy as a result of her mother’s drug abuse during pregnancy, a condition that means she feels other people’s pleasure and pain.

The people living outside their neighborhood wall are homeless, mutilated, and wounded, which makes it difficult for Lauren to be around them. They live in Robledo, a city 20 miles outside Los Angeles.

Lauren and the other kids being baptized are making a special trip beyond their neighbor wall to a real church for the occasion. Although Lauren has stopped believing in her father’s religion, she is about to let herself be baptized. Later, she and her stepmother, Cory, discuss the fact that now there is no light pollution, and people can see the stars again. Lauren has a dream in which she is teaching herself to fly, but ends up flying into a wall of fire. It is the year 2024, the night before Lauren Olamina’s 15th birthday (and Lauren’s father’s 55th).
