About the Book

For dystopian fans of THE LAST OF US, THE MAZE RUNNER, and THE HUNGER GAMES.

The YA debut from award-winning author, Stuart White.

IN A NAMELESS WORLD, ONE HERO RISES BY DISCOVERING THEIR IDENTITY.

In a dystopian world dominated by genetic perfection and numbered gene pools, sixteen-year-old E820927, known as Seven, yearns for an identity beyond his assigned number.

To escape a life as a Nameless Exile, and become a citizen of the Realm, he must pass a loyalty test to prove his allegiance to the totalitarian Autokratōr.

With the world’s fate hanging in the balance, Seven’s journey sparks rebellion, hope, and the reclamation of individuality.

But as the truth unfolds, Seven faces a difficult choice between revenge and love.

About the Author

Stuart is an award-winning author and secondary school teacher. He has a Masters Degree in Creative Writing and founded, and now runs, WriteMentor. In 2020 and 2022 he was placed on the SCWBI Undiscovered Voices longlist and named as an Hononary Mention for his novels ‘Ghosts of Mars’ and ‘Astra FireStar and the Ripples of Time’. In 2023, he won the WriteBlend award for his middle grade debut, Ghosts of Mars.

Stuart was included in The Bookseller’s 2021 list of Rising Stars in the publishing industry.

What I Thought

The Nameless brings another meaning to the phrase “Making a name for yourself”. Children in this society have to follow the rules of the Realm and enter Realm camps as numbers. This ends with them taking the Caste Test. Success leads to being named and entering into Academics or Military recruitment. Failure leads to Exile or Reevaluation!! 

Our protagonist Seven grew up under the care of Cherish, but she was not his biological family and he has always felt that innate need to find his roots, where he came from. He also realises that all is not right in a society that worships perfection. Especially when they are willing to do anything to achieve it in animals and humans, and disregard those who don’t meet that ideal. 

This dystopian thriller follows in the footsteps of Divergent and The Hunger Games with a young protagonist’s personal struggle leading them to their place in a wider rebellion against a whole society. What was intriguing here was who Seven turned out to be. It did take a while for us to find out his origins and personally I think I’d have liked this information earlier because it sheds a whole new light on events. 

This is quite brutal at times with plenty of death and Seven even makes a commentary on the lives of those dying just being seen as a number to both sides. This hits a bit close to what is currently going on in the world. The major inciting incident threw me and did continue to have reverberations through the story. 

Seven is quite naive at times – especially when it comes to girls. And here he is pretty led by his emotions. I don’t think I fully bought into the love triangle that was introduced but I guess that’s what happens when who you think should be endgame for them is introduced early on. Whether she ends up as endgame I will leave you to read and see – although the series looks like it will continue so plenty of time for everything to change. 

With a theme so vast as Namelessness there is a lot of focus on identity. There seems to be something very odd about being handed a name at the age of sixteen, when this is an age where teens are trying to claim themselves (not that being given a name at birth is any less strange I guess). During the book Seven actually experiences being known by different names but does he claim any for himself? 

I’m intrigued to see what happens next and how the main theme continues to develop – because I don’t think identity is a static thing at all. I also hope we get much more of the side characters in future books as there are some really interesting ones I really want to know more about. 

If you are a fan of the genre I think you will enjoy playing spot the influence because I think there’s quite a few nods to other stories and I do enjoy this intertextuality. 

Please note trigger warnings for violence, torture and cannibalism. 

Huge thanks to The Write Reads and the author for the gifted e copy provided for the purposes of an honest review. Do follow along with the rest of the tour to see what others thought too.