2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist, Young Authors division! Praise for The Essence of Aptitude: **************************************************************************************************************** A true page turner. The plot is imaginative and the writing is beautiful and poetic. The first page draws you in and the characters stay with you long after the last. **************************************************************************************************************** Bajaj is able to successfully encapsulate the emotions of institutional turmoil as well as familial displacement in both a well crafted and suspenseful novel. **************************************************************************************************************** This story grabbed me from the first paragraph. It’s Star Wars meets Divergent and is the story of two sisters who find themselves on opposite sides of the governing forces. **************************************************************************************************************** The Great Empire of Corpus thrives by the hand of a system that monitors their citizens from birth. Their inclination towards logic is calculated into a finite number that is branded onto their wrists on their ranking day at the age of sixteen, and they are separated into one of six colored categories. Juliet and Gwendolyn Fenn spend the beginning of their lives bound back by the Grey status of their parents, residing at the utmost bottom of the hierarchy. On ranking day, agents of a mysterious unranked sect, the Conscience, snatch Juliet from her home. They take her to the Cerebrum, the capitol of the land and the dwelling place of the Metallic ranks, Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Once there, Juliet is informed that she has not only been ranked as a Gold, but as the First, and will be groomed to be the crowned ruler of the nation. Gwendolyn, ranked into Blue, only one step higher from her origins, soon becomes sick with resentment as the depths of her sister’s arrogance come to light. She decides to take matters into her own hands and joins the Fracture, an insurgent group lead by the notorious Tyus Zraa, who’s true colors Gwendolyn fails to discover until she is in too deep to turn around.