Review: Revolution 19 by Gregg Rosenblum

Pages: 272
Expected Publication: January 08th 2013 by Harper Teen
# in Series: First
Source: Harper Teen via Edelweiss

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Summary from Goodreads:

“Twenty years ago, the robots designed to fight our wars abandoned the battlefields. Then they turned their weapons on us.

Only a few escaped the robot revolution of 2071. Kevin, Nick, and Cass are lucky —they live with their parents in a secret human community in the woods. Then their village is detected and wiped out. Hopeful that other survivors have been captured by bots, the teens risk everything to save the only people they have left in the world—by infiltrating a city controlled by their greatest enemies.“

My Thoughts & Review:

Revolution 19 is a futuristic dystopian novel that takes place after the robots took over the world. Kevin, Nick & Cass(the three main characters) live in a “free” community in the woods which the survivors from the revolution started to rebuild society. One day the robots suddenly invade the community and the three teens escape. They realize their parents must have been taken to the City, which they have always been told have horrible living conditions and humans are forced to do hard labor. When they arrive though… it’s not what they expect.

The characters in Revolution 19 were just ok. There wasn’t a whole lot of character development so at every moment that it felt like they may potentially die, I found I didn’t really care if they did. Due to the lack of character development I wasn’t able to become emotionally invested in any of them.

One of the things I also had a hard time with was that the city was supposed to be so awful. Honestly I didn’t find that it seemed all that dangerous.  You could still basically come and go as you pleased, you had families, went to school, had jobs.  Robots basically just served as cops… and you got a bit of a warning if they wanted you to do something. I guess I could see why the citizens may want to leave because it seemed pretty strict with somethings but it really didn’t seem as awful as I believe the author intended you to think it.

 One of the reasons I may not have liked it as much as I could have perhaps is that I constantly compared it to Partials. I’m not a huge science fiction reader but I have read(and enjoyed!) Partials and the story is very similar. Unfortunately for this one… Partials is a great deal more action filled with a lot of character development. I thrive on well-rounded characters so without them I felt like it was missing a large part of the story.

Despite all of that, it was a fairly enjoyable read. It was quick paced and easy to get through. I was actually surprised on how quickly I finished. One of the perks is that ends in such a way(abruptly) that you basically need to read the sequel to find out how the story ends. I think the plot holds a lot of potential, I just hope the second novel betters the story.

Overall I gave it a 3.  If it sounds interesting to you, pick it up … you may enjoy it.  And if this is your first science fiction type of read, I definitely think you may enjoy it because you’d have nothing to compare it to in the genre!

 

My Rating: