Twelve teens who have prepared their entire lives for an ancient life-or-death game must finally come to terms with its arrival, forming tenuous alliances and killing each other for the chance to be the last one standing and the winner of the ultimate prize: the ability to save a select group of people from the end of the world.

One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers his first novel-a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original. Dozens of characters pass across the reader's sight lines-some never to be seen again-but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA's lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future...