A Young Adult duology written by Maria V. Snyder, consisting of Inside Out (2010) and Outside In (2011).
Trella is a scrub of Inside, a low-class citizen whose sole expected duty is to scrub pipes in service to the Uppers of the society. And, for the most part, she does her job as all scrubs do.
But she's different in that she has a friend, Cog, and that she uses the pipes to sneak around and spy on Upper levels. And when Trella hears that the fabled Gateway to Outside may exist, she's enlisted to find evidence...and ends up kickstarting a revolution.
Outside In takes place sometime after the events of the first book. The sequel deals with the ramifications of what Outside properly means...and that things aren't quite as they seem out there.
Not to be confused with the Pixar film of the same name. Though oddly enough both feature a character named Riley.
These books contain examples of:
- Capital Letters Are Magic: Certain key worldbuilding terms like Outside, Inside, and Gateway are capitalized.
- Character Development: Trella starts out as selfish and becomes selfless throughout the books.
- Fantastic Caste System: The people on the Inside are divided between uppers and scrubs. The uppers get to live in luxury, while the scrubs do all the dirty menial labor. The division between them is enforced on both sides by the Pop Cops' propaganda.
- Foul Cafeteria Food: The cafeteria food for the scrubs is described as green-, yellow- or brown-colored slop that smells like moldy vegetables.
- Lost Common Knowledge: Many things, but the lost fact that outer space is dangerous and has no air dooms Cog.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Trella takes it pretty badly when she realizes how selfish she's been.
- Population Control: The population is divided into two castes, the Uppers and the scrubs. Scrubs are encouraged to have as many children as possible and are denied birth control. Men and children who break the rules are executed, but fertile women who commit infractions become "breeders", kept chained down and constantly pregnant until their bodies give out from the strain. Uppers, on the other hand, are allowed one child per couple. If there's an accident with their birth control, the extra child is dyed to look like the scrubs' ethnicity and given to a scrub foster mother. The overlords use this to foster class division, telling the scrubs that the Uppers are spoiled rotten and telling the Uppers that the scrubs are too lazy and selfish to use birth control despite their overpopulation.
