San Fransisco

The entirety of Ripe is set in San Francisco in late 2019. The city is populated by both the elite and the impoverished. While the rich live in townhouses and purchase gourmet groceries, the poor live on the street and find food in dumpsters. Throughout the novel, Cassie struggles to reconcile the wealth gap that she is constantly surrounded by. When she is on the VOYAGER campus, she is comforted to see trash caught on the shore. The ugliness of the refuse feels like a needed abrasion to the pristine campus where the tech workers balk at tropical fruit and ignore the housing crisis. As the novel progresses, the city begins to shut down as the virus spreads and wildfire smoke permeates the air.

Voyager Officer

Throughout the novel, Cassie spends the majority of her time at the VOYAGER office. The large building is immaculate and designed to...