5 to 1

by Holly Bodger

Part Homeless Bird and part Matched, this is a dark look at the near future told through the alternating perspectives of two teens who dare to challenge the system.

In the year 2054, after decades of gender selection, India now has a ratio of five boys for every girl, making women an incredibly valuable commodity. Tired of marrying off their daughters to the highest bidder and determined to finally make marriage fair, the women who form the country of Koyanagar have instituted a series of tests so that every boy has the chance to win a wife.

Sudasa, though, doesn’t want to be a wife, and Kiran, a boy forced to compete in the test to become her husband, has other plans as well. As the tests advance, Sudasa and Kiran thwart each other at every turn until they slowly realize that they just might want the same thing.

This beautiful, unique novel is told from alternating points of view—Sudasa’s in verse and Kiran’s in prose—allowing readers to experience both characters’ pain and their brave struggle for hope.

• ISBN10: 0385391536
• ISBN13: 9780385391535
• Publish Date: 12 May 2015 (first published 1 January 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 9 August 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Knopf Books for Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 256
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780385391535

Reviews

[Linda]

This review was originally posted on (un)Conventional Bookviews
5 to 1 has an amazing premise, however, more than being about women in power, it was about someone abusing power in a society that had opposite values from the patriarchal one.



The prose (and the verse) in 5 to 1 was beautiful, but the story didn't really carry its own weight in my opinion. It was as if the society and how it works in some countries today - one child policy, a very strong want for sons, women being at the mercy of the men in their family - was just turned upside down. And that made the story less relevant to me - because it didn't really ask any important questions, it just showed us what is wrong, by doing it completely opposite to how it looks in patriarchal societies.

The world building was flimsy at best, as apart from the fact that women had taken the decision to stop 'getting rid of' their daughters, by putting a wall up around their new country, and more or less forcing men - and a lot of women, too - to obey the new laws. 5 to 1 could have been much more, but it read like a cross between The Hunger Games and the Testing and Egalia's Daughters.

Because of the shortness of the story, which only spanned over three days, and the fact that Sudasa's chapters were in verse made it a bit difficult to actually connect to her, even if the writing was gorgeous. Normally, dual points of views makes me feel like I really get to know the characters, but here, that didn't really happen. It just kind of poked at the surface, never going deep enough to get all the dirty details.



These people have been here before.
Those over> thirty as audience.
Those under< as players.
                  (Women in my place.
                    Men on the stage.)
The men played a game.
Put on a show. Won
                 a contest.
                 a wife.
                 a life.
Life sentence, if you ask me.

He speaks using only the best words. He tends only the strongest crops. He has saved everything to give me one shot, and one shot only, at a new life.

The State provides their food, their shelter, their shackles for life. It's do or die - or, for many, do and die.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

5 to 1 by Holly Bodger is a fantastic feminist YA novel that looks at how having one gender superior to another is no good for anyone.

In the not too distant future, things have changed in India. No longer happy with the worth placed on baby boys over baby girls, women of a certain area have revolted, and created their own country within India, Koyanagar. Here, women rule and men serve. Due to how things were before, when unborn girls were terminated, or girls who were born were abandoned, there are still far more males than females in Koyanagar - five boys to every girl. So when a girl turns 17, five contestants are chosen from the eligible boys of similar age, and they are to undergo tests to help the girl choose the best husband, who will help her produce healthy baby girls and who will serve her well. Sudasa doesn't agree with the system. Women rule, but to her, their is no choice. A woman must find a husband, and she can only choose from the five contestants, and her grandmother, one of the founding members of Koyanagar, seems to have more control over the "randomly" selected contestants than is legal. Sudasa just wants freedom and choice. Contestant Five has no interest in becoming a woman's lapdog and treated as nothing. He has his own plans. But when neither have much of a choice, who knows what the outcome will be?

Oh my god, this book was SO good! I was absolutely gripped by 5 to 1! With Sudasa's chapters in verse, I absolutely flew through this book! Due to work I was unable to, but it could quite easily be read in a day. This future Indian country Bodger has created is so scary. The description of India as it was - as it is now, to a lesser degree, as Bodger tells us - is awful. The President of Koyanagar makes a speech before the tests, and in this speech, we discover how Koyanagar came to be, and why. Due to over population, a former prime minister f India said that people had to limit themselves to one child. But:

'"The citizens didn't want any child. [...] They wanted a child who could carry the family name, inherit the land. [...] They didn't want a child whose dowry would empty their safes to fill the pockets of another. They wanted a male child."' (p20) 

But after horrendous acts of gender selection, the country eventually had more boys than it did girls. Boys who needed wives, so they could have their own sons.

'"Suddenly a girl--any girl, even a poor, worthless one--could be sold to the highest bidder. And that's if she were lucky. Some girls were stolen out of their childhood beds. Others were raped, fated for ruin."' (p20-21)

Horrific. And so Koyanagar was formed. The patriarchy was turned on it's head, and Koyanagar had a matriarchy. Better, right? Wrong.

As Sudasa tells us, her life is one without choice.



(p15-16)

I think that's enough of a taster about the world Sudasa and Contestant Five live in. There's more, but I don't want to spoil the story too much. Either way, it's highly thought-provoking. Not just because of how terrible Koyanager is, but because it's set only 39 years in the future. When I'll be 67 - just let that sink in. A dystopia set in a future it's possible I - and you - will still be around to see. There's enough history given in this book to see that things could change so much, so drastically in such a short period of time.  As shown in the link I shared above, Bodger made some exaggerations to the ratio, but it's still terrifying to realise this is something that could happen - in our own lifetimes.

I also love how with 5 to 1 Bodger is saying that there is no way but equality between men and women. Feminists aren't after superiority for women. This is a country where women are superior to men, and still, everyone but the rich and powerful suffer. A gender imbalance, either way, is not helpful to anyone. The only way to sort out problems like in Sudasa's India are for women, girls, females to be valued just as much as men, boys, males. Only when women are worth just as much as men, when we are all equal - not superior - will things even out.

5 to 1 is brilliant, but I did expect more when it came to the tests the boys had to go through. The tests themselves aren't that exciting. I was expecting more dangerous, harsher tests - as Sudasa says, the contestants risk death - but the risk comes from the outcome of the tests. A woman will choose a husband, and the ones who aren't chosen end up living a harsh existence, where death is likely to be in their immediate future, but I thought the tests were going to be more than they were. 5 to 1, only set over three days, is more about how unfair Koyanaga is in the opinions of Sudasa and Contestant 5, rather than from us seeing too much of how terrible it can be. It's more a book to get you thinking than to shock you through the events that are on the page. I would also have liked to see what Koyanagar - and the India before Koyanagar - thought about LGBTQ people and how they were treated, what their options were, but there was no mention at all, which I'm unhappy about.

But as I said, 5 to 1 is such an amazing story! A fantastic debut novel, and a wonderful book to get people to think about gender, feminism, and equality. I highly recommend it!

Thank you to Knopf Books for the bookseller reading copy.

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

5 to 1 is a very interesting and unique story. It's one of those realistic Dystopians, as in, it's just the real world without any kind of crazy technological advances or supernatural influence. Sudasa is seventeen years old and watching her future husband compete in a series of tests. There are five boys competing for her hand, but in the end she must choose one. It's not something she's looking forward to. In her city, women are supposedly the ones in power, but she feels trapped by her responsibility. Especially when the boy she wants to choose doesn't want to be chosen.

5 to 1 is set in a future India where population control went terribly wrong. A law was implemented that families could only have one child, and they all wanted to have a boy to carry on the family name and bring honor. Of course, this means the ratio of boys to girls become very skewed, and now everyone wants to have girls and boys are considered useless. Girls are treated like princesses, and men are rewarded for siring girls, otherwise they're sent to patrol the wall protecting their city where it's kill or be killed. While it seems great that women stepped up to protect themselves and their daughters and granddaughters, really no one is happy in this city. It's one of those things that sounded good in theory, but in actuality is nearly as bad as what they were working against.

I loved how 5 to 1 was told in dual POV, one of which was in verse! Sudasa has the verse chapters, and we really get to see her struggle with her decision. There is no black and white here. It's all shades of grey, since she absolutely does not want to wind up with her cousin, but she also doesn't want to force "Contestant Five" to marry her when she knows he wants to get out. Meanwhile, Five doesn't want to be chosen, but he also doesn't want her to choose her pompous, arrogant, disrespectful cousin. It's just a mess. And no, despite being all about marriage, there is no romance. So don't worry about insta-love or love triangles or any of that. It's more about two people trying to pave their own futures.

I really liked 5 to 1. It only takes place over three days, which is the span of the marriage competition. I normally love books with such a narrow focus, and I think it works especially well here, since we get to see this major event in detail while also getting a pretty good glimpse into how this society in general works. I was a bit disappointed in the ending though, since I feel like it's too open. I'm hoping it's a happy ending, and I'm just going to assume it is. Although I would have liked the story to extend a bit further, since as it is, it all seems too easy.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.