Pages: 375
Published: July 10th 2012 by Simon & Schuster
# in Series: 1st in The Forsaken series
Source: Read via PulseIt
Summary from Goodreads:
“As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.
The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway.”
My Thoughts & Review:
I was really looking forward to this book, really. I love dystopian books, and I thought this concept sounded really cool. It fell so flat for me. Let’s begin…
I did not get into this book for the first 200 pages. It took me that long to even become remotely interested, I was basically just forcing myself to read further because I thought surely it must get better. I hardly ever do that with books, If it’s gonna take me that long to get into the story, it’s not happening for me. I’m glad I did force myself to continue as it did pick up around the 60% mark, but really? Jeez.
Also a lot of people said it’s really fast paced and action filled and I did not get that at all. Sure the last bit had some action in it, but every time there was a fight I felt like it was the same thing over and over.
I really liked Aleena as a character, she was smart, had a decent head on her shoulders and could make her own decisions. I also really liked the love story between her and Liam, except I was so suspicious of him for the majority of the book, why? I’m not sure… I just was.
I also loved the twists of the book, I wasn’t expecting a lot of them so that was a nice surprise. I was originally going to rate this 2 stars but the last 4 to 5 chapters really satisfied me. All in all, I would recommend reading this but it’s not a rush out to get kinda book. The concept is really good it should have just been a bit more attention grabbing from the beginning. I will be reading the second book when it comes out.
My Rating:
Happy Reading!
xo Lauren
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