Completed 8/9/14
2.5 of 5 stars
336 page Kindle book
I received this book from NetGalley for my honest review.
This dystopian book is about a future where it's not safe to live on Earth any longer. Humans now live on Spaceships above Earth. However, it's decided that a group of teenagers, who have all been jailed for one reason or another, will be sent to Earth to see if life can be sustained there again. These 100 teens are not given a choice and are sent to a place they know nothing about. The story is about them arriving on Earth, as well as what continues to go on within the spaceships.
When I saw this book a while ago I thought it looked pretty good and I almost tried out the TV show. Perhaps the TV show worked out, I don't know because I haven't heard anything more about it, but the book did not. For me, there were too many characters. Each chapter went back and forth on a different character and it was too much information to be squeezed into such a short book. Plus, for each character, there was the present time, and there were flashbacks about how they ended up where they are now.
It was just WAY too much going on for such a short book. Perhaps if it was twice as long and some of the stories were more detailed, instead of each being a hurried explanation of something before it moved on, it could have maybe been better. I would have liked it better if it was one, or even two, main characters that learned all the things we learned about the others from talking to them, getting them all to share their stories. Plus, what was going on back at the Spaceship had nothing to do with what was done on Earth and I felt it was completely out of place with what the book was supposedly supposed to be about ~ 100 teens landing on Earth and starting a new life there.
This book just didn't interest me at all and I have NO desire to read any more of the books or see the show. It was a boring and jumbled mess of a book that had a good premise but didn't deliver. Instead, gave tiny tidbits of multiple lives with almost no action on Earth itself. Boring overall.
Setting = A
Plot = C
Conflict = C-
Characters = C
Theme = C
You are a braver woman than I am! I've heard awful things about this book, so I have decided not to even bother with it. That said, I'm a huge fan of the show. It's surprisingly entertaining and well thought out. It actually makes sense most of the time. I do have some rage-y moments, but that seems to be the case regardless of how good what I'm watching is. Given that you didn't like the book, I still wouldn't write off the show. Plus, the female characters (Clarke, Raven, and Octavia) are total BAMFs.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard anything about it previously, I tend to not look into things that sound good to me because I have different tastes than others. I definitely didn't enjoy it, but I think it probably would be a good show. If I ever get free time, I'd try it. :)
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