The Bar Code Tattoo

Fiction by Suzanne Weyn
Reviewed by Jenn C.
Not in the NVHS Collection as of this post


In the year 2025, life is very different, especially for seventeen year old Kayla Reed. In this future society, it is a policy that you get a bar code tattoo on your wrist when you turn eighteen. This tattoo becomes your identity in a sense that you when you go out and buy something, when you get pulled over, or if you wish to do something legal like get married, all you do is scan your tattoo. The bar code is supposed to make life easier, and make you happier. But, for Kayla and many others, the code threatens to ruin their lives. Kayla has not yet gotten hers, and she is putting it off for as long as she can. She just doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want to be labeled into the conformity, plus the fact that it is the cause of her father’s suicide. For some unknown reason, it ruined his life and took him of everything he was worth. So, what if you say no and refuse the tattoo? What if you don’t want to become a code? These are the questions that Kayla can not answer, and her choice to refuse it sends her life into a whirlpool. She becomes a freak and an outcast in her high school, her friends reject her, and her family is threatened. Kayla can’t hide anymore, no, she has to run for her life.

The Bar Code Tattoo is an exciting read about one girl’s fight with society, highlighting individuality verses conformity and freedom versus control. Weyn does an amazing job of showing this fight to a point where you are feeling the pain and state of confusion that is Kayla’s life. This book is a page turner that leaves you hungry for more each time you put it down. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an adventure story and who also enjoys reading attempts at overcoming some sort of struggle. The Bar Code Tattoo is a liberating and captivating book for all readers.