Second paragraph of third chapter:

Maeth and Ross were doing different courses, but would be on the same campus in Europe Central. Issette, Cathan and Keon would be together on a campus in Europe South. The other tour of us would be heading off alone. I’d always known I would be, of course, since Pre-history Foundation classes spent the year working at some of the major dig sites.

This is a rather good YA novel, which I picked up as a freebie at Loncon and have only now got to. In the future, humanity has discovered how to travel across and between planets using “portals”; a small minority cannot use them for genetic reasons and are doomed to stay on Earth, stigmatised as “apes”. Jarra, our heroine, joins a mixed group of young people on a study mission to dig up the remains of New York (abandoned when technology meant that cities became obsolete). She proves herself to herself and also to her classmates. It’s fun but also serious; obviously Jarra’s stigma is one that doesn’t apply in our world, but perhaps that makes it easier to apply the parallels. She is perhaps a little too talented and lucky, but this is a novel after all. I’ll look out for the sequels. You can get it here.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2014. Next is Perilous Dreams, by Andre Norton.