All around the Internet, this book received glowing reviews. But, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Usually, when I read a YA dystopian romance, you have to pry my hands away from the pages to get me to stop. But, it took me almost a week and dozens of times where I sat down to read to get through this one.
According to Lauren Oliver's website, this is the first book in a trilogy. But honestly, I don't know if I will read the next one. Even though this book was incredibly slow paced, I felt like it spent too much time focusing on Lena's whining and not enough time fleshing out the world that caused her to be like this. I do realize that Lena has to have growth as a character, but I just got tired of her being so scared. Yes, there is a big bad government that you are starting to realize will kill you just for feeling. SO DO SOMETHING. It is both a blessing and a curse to think of fictional characters as real people. When they are amazing, it allows you to admire them. But, if they are short of spectacular, then you wonder why the author didn't write about someone else. Also, I think that Lena's realizations of how bad her society is are so much slower than the readers. We almost had to wait for our main character to catch up, which was really unattractive. [Speaking of unattractive, I wanted to slap Lena every single time that she put herself down based on appearance. It is okay to say you are plain once, but never ugly and never repeat it over and over again.]
That being said, I loved the character of Alex. He was a great combination of a tortured individual combined with a rebel, with a dash of sensitivity for people, especially the ones he loves. MAJOR SPOILER ALERT HERE. DO NOT READ HERE IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE END OF THE BOOK SPOILED. I probably won't read the next book because Alex was the character that I loved and kept reading for. Now, he's gone. I almost wish that Lena had given her life to save him, but that would have never happened. She's the main character. But you've got to admit, that would have been a great twist. END OF SPOILER.
One of the elements that really interested me from the beginning was the "Holy Trinity" of "God, Science, and Order". I felt like Oliver was poking into a huge story behind the founding of this society, but she ignored it for a whiny and passive main character. I was truly interested to see how the government managed to form this society where God and Science are part of the Trinity and people welcome a procedure that doesn't allow them to feel.
The last lines of the book really got to me, mostly because they are repeated over and over throughout the course of the novel, then squashed together at the end. They summarize everything good and powerful in the novel. No matter my thoughts, this technique was effective, to say the least. (I possibly shed a few tears.)
These last lines are:
"You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between in every way.
But I have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear.
I love you. Remember. They cannot take it".
Honestly, Lauren Oliver could have cut out much of the middle section of the book (most of which I skimmed and don't really have memory of) and still could have conveyed this powerful message perfectly.
I really enjoyed this novel, even if there were quite a few things that I would have done differently. I don't think it was everything that everyone hyped it up to be, but it was definitely better than many of the other things that count a published novels nowadays. I would give it a 3.5/5 stars.
Until next time,
DFTBA and best wishes!
Nadia
2012 Tracker:
YLC Books: 0
Non-YLC: 1
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