"The Chrysalids" by John Wyndham is a science fiction novel written in 1955 and set around the 22nd century in a small town called Waknuk, in Labrador. This story is a bout a community where every person, animal or crop has to be pure bred or they are known as deviations or mutants. The deviations are burnt and the mutant people are sterilized and sent to the Fringes, a dead forestland on the outskirts of Waknuk. It is true that "The Chrysalids" is a novel that is both depressing and optimistic. There are certain things in the novel that sound horrific in the readers' eyes and would be very inexcusable if it were to happen in today is society. However, there are just as many high points in the book as there are lows.

It all started with a nuclear war. People started to look different, extra fingers and...