Single Sundays: On Sundays, I review a stand-alone book that is not a part of a series. Here is this week’s offering:
Synopsis (from Goodreads.com):
Imagine waking up in a post-apocalyptic, nightmare world–and being told your whole life is but a dream. Skye Brown thought she was your typical teen–good grades, hot boyfriend, and an afterschool job that pays her to play videogames. But then she started having the dreams.
In her dreams, there is no Earth. Only Terra, a bleak, underground wasteland where people live in squalor and oppression. In her dreams, there is no Skye–only Mariah, a rebel leader fighting against a vile, dystopian regime. And then there’s Dawn, a handsome, but haunted solider who sees her as but an empty shell of the girl he once love–a betrayer he vows to hate forever, despite what she sees deep in his eyes.
Now, ripped between Dark Siders and club kids, the mundane and the mystic, Skye finds herself in a fight against time–to learn who she really is, where she belongs.. .and why. The shocking truth will have her questioning her own reality…and her heart.
Review:
I’m not too sure how I feel about this book. I feel bad giving it a 2 (I would stretch to say my rating is a 2.5) but I didn’t really enjoy the first half of the book.
The whole concept of the book was what intrigued me to read it. After reading the description I was reminded of the anime .hack//sign and how similar the plots were. That should have been my first clue that I was in for a confusing and odd book because that anime still puzzles me to this very day and I’ve seen every episode twice.
The book jumps right into the action with no work-up to the main plot. Normally, I would be fine with this (I hate reading long and tedious events before the true plot of the story emerges) but with this it just confused me. I can appreciate a little bit of mystery to keep the reader interested but with this it felt like I should already know what was being discussed.
Usually, I can predict how a book will end before the halfway point but with this, I really had no idea what was going on–let alone how it would end. It wasn’t until I was 1/3 of the way through that pieces started to fall into place but I still didn’t predict what was really going on until it was revealed (so thumbs up for an original twist).
Skye annoyed me to no end at the beginning. She was so wish-washy in her thoughts and convictions that it started to get on my nerves. After learning more about her character later in the book, I could somewhat understand why her character was presented that way but there were still a few things that I felt she should have reacted differently.
The whole concept presented is very interesting and I can respect where Mari Mancusi was going with this. I just feel like it didn’t deliver enough to make me fully appreciate the story.
Conclusion:
Do I regret reading this book? No, it definitely got better near the end but the ending seemed too abrupt for me to truly appreciate the story. I’m just glad it’s not the start to a series that I would now feel compelled to read. There are better reads out there but if you want to take a chance on a different type of story, (and have the time to do so) then it might be worth the couple of hours it will take you to read this.
Rating: 2.5/5
Shorthand Stats:
Genre: Young Adult; Science Fiction, Dystopian
Recommended for: 16+
Similar Books: Not a similar book, but a similar TV show is .hack//sign
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