Lissa Price’s Starters is a young adult science fiction novel set in the near future after the Spore Wars, during which biological weapons were used against the United States and wiped out much of the unvaccinated middle-aged population. As a result, many teens were left without families, and the elderly feared for their place in society. Starters without grandparents were barred from essentially every type of work. This led to teens being rounded up to do manual labor in institutions without pay or hope for a better future. As a result, teens hide from the authorities and avoid the marshals by squatting in empty buildings and living life on the run, like Callie, her younger brother, Tyler, and her friend, Michael. The book explores the complex nature of identity and many themes around survival and status. The novel contains graphic violence, gore, fighting, mild sexual physicality, disturbing imagery, and dystopian environments. This guide refers to the first edition Ember paperback novel.

Lissa Price is an author based in Southern California. She wrote Starters, Enders, and short stories set around the Spore Wars.

Plot Summary

Callie Woodland is a 16-year-old Starter from Southern California who wants to live in a safe, stable environment with her younger brother, Tyler, and her friend, Michael. The only problem is Callie is an unclaimed minor barely surviving on the streets and ducking the marshals at every turn as she and her makeshift family scrap for shelter and resources. Like many Starters, or young people, her parents died during the Spore Wars, which were conflicts in the Pacific that led to the release of giant dandelion spores that polluted California with a biological weapon that wiped out most of the middle-aged population because unlike the elderly and youth, they were not vaccinated in time.

The only young people who retain stability are those with grandparents because Enders, or elderly people, rule the society, hold the jobs, and control the money. Teenagers are forbidden from working or owning anything themselves, and therefore, it is quite challenging for unclaimed minors to survive. Many of them are swept up by the marshals to be held in institutions where they live in abysmal conditions and do manual labor with no end in sight or hope for a better future.

For the teens resourceful enough to survive, like Callie, they have forged alliances as either Friendlies or Renegades. Friendlies are those Starters like Callie, Tyler, and Michael who live in harmony with other teens and help each other when they can. Renegades, also known as Unfriendlies, are the teens who will take anything from anyone, including (and especially) other desperate Starters.

Callie has heard of a way out and is desperate to try anything as it gets harder to survive, and her brother has a serious lung condition that they can’t afford to treat. A body bank called Prime Destinations offers a place where Starters without families can sell their bodies to Enders for use for limited windows of time in exchange for cash. The rentals occur through the implantation of a microchip that allows the Ender to control the Starter’s body while the Starter is in a sleeplike state. While Callie isn’t thrilled about having to do this and has concerns about the rules at Prime, she ultimately signs with them because she needs the money; the money Prime offers her is enough for them to live somewhere safely for a few years at least. They give Callie an extraordinary makeover, and she’s so beautiful, she doesn’t recognize herself.

Callie’s first rental for a day goes so smoothly, she didn’t even realize it happened. Her second rental goes almost as quickly, though she awakens with a huge, nasty cut on her arm. It’s her third rental that is the problem: It’s a month long, and she becomes conscious in a club at the beginning of the rental when she’s supposed to be unconscious. Callie has no idea what’s going on and doesn’t want to lose the money from Prime because something went wrong. She pretends to be Helena Winterhill, her renter, and she starts hearing Helena’s voice in her head. Something is wrong with her chip, and she slips in and out of her body. As she does, she finds herself in precarious situations because Helena has plans to assassinate a senator—using Callie’s body—to stop Prime from pushing its agenda and hurting more teens. Callie is initially horrified by Helena’s plan and does everything in her power to stop it, but she soon learns about Helena’s backstory and that her granddaughter, Emma, went missing after signing with Prime. This prompts Callie to realize that even some wealthy Starters lie to work for Prime because of the extensive makeovers they give.

While Callie is trying to help Helena, she is also entwined in a romantic relationship with someone she believes to be a Starter named Blake. However, he is really the CEO of Prime Destinations, known only as the Old Man. The Old Man is using Blake’s body to threaten the senator, Blake’s grandfather, to push legislation and advance Prime’s agenda or else risk losing Blake. Callie is racked with guilt over hiding her identity from Blake.

Ultimately, Callie makes friends and allies along the way, like Madison, a funny Ender, and Lauren, a practical friend of Helena’s. She loses people who help and care about her, like Sara, the little girl from Institution 37; Redmond, the mad scientist who modified Callie’s chip to deactivate the no-kill switch for Helena; and Helena, who goes silent after a struggle in Callie’s head.

Callie learns that Blake isn’t who he says he is, and Prime Destinations has plans to permanently co-opt Starter bodies to create a better experience for their wealthy Enders. With the help of her allies and Blake’s grandfather’s political rival, Callie unmasks Prime Destinations for what it is and reunites with Tyler. Helena left them half of her estate and a vacation house, and they finally live the life they wanted all along, except the Old Man got away and was in Callie’s head toward the end. Even as she’s watching Prime being demolished and approached by the real Blake for a chance to try their relationship, she is disturbed by a new voice in her head: her father’s voice, telling her to run.