YA review: Starters by Lissa Price

In Lissa Price's dystopian novel Starters, there are two types of people: Starters, who are teens and younger, and  Enders, the very, very old. Science has advanced to the point where active 120 year olds are very common.  During biological warfare, the young and old were innoculated, but adults in middle-age were not, leaving plenty of unclaimed minors trying to survive on the streets. Technology has also advanced to the point where the priveleged Enders with enough money can 'rent' the bodies of desparate starters. Callie is recruited by a corporation called Prime Destinations that promises big money to starters who allow Enders to essentially take over their body for specified amounts of time through implanted computer chips. With a sick brother and few options, Callie agrees, but in the third rental something odd begins happening, and Callie finds her renter is using Callie's body to do something illegal and potentially, even likely, fatal.
Price's writing is fast-paced, and once the story takes off it's a suspenseful page-turner. However, a number of larger questions about the backstory are largely unanswered (why are some grandparents or great grandparents so incredibly old?) and some implausible situations occur that call for anwarrented suspension of disbelief. The mild 'surprise' ending begs for a sequel, to be published in December 2013. Middle schoolers will likely eat this up; older readers might not be able to suspend their disbelief long enough to get past the many questions that pop up.