Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Page Count: 400
Do you know that feeling when you see a book on NetGalley and you’re like “Sure, that sounds interesting. Let’s request it!” but then you find out it’s a sequel and now you are forced to quickly read the first book to understand what’s going on in the other one? If you have never experienced this, count yourself lucky! It has happened so many times to me and mostly I don’t care, but when it comes to dystopian worlds, I like to get the full picture and not just feel lost along the story. I don’t feel like I could fairly review it otherwise. So, long story short, I accidentally requested (but really blame the publisher because they didn’t state it correctly) the sequel to this and now read this as fast as I could.
I haven’t read dystopians in a while now, but this felt as generic as they come. Bright young girl learns that the system she believed in isn’t as fair as it’s made out to be while also being entangled in a sort of love triangle – sound familiar? I felt like the relationship had a real Katniss-Peeta-Gale-dynamic to it, which means one of the boys was a Gale, which in my language means he never was a real prospect for the MC’s love anyway.
The concept of eradicating all mental health issues sounded interesting at first, but it soon became very disturbing. They literally put collars on people who have a problem at controlling their temper. In addition to that, they basically hand out suicide pills to the poorer population, because they don’t want to help those people like they do with the upper class. No, those folks can get their memories erased whenever something bad has happened. I do see the benefits of not having to remember e.g. being raped, but they also discuss how the memory wipe affects the person’s personality. Our memories and the things that have happend to us, may they be good or bad, make us into the people we are. They change us and wiping your mind clear of these events will forever make you a different person too.
There were some interesting theories thrown in the mix, but I found the execution very poorly. Lain, the main character, was annoyingly idealistic. I simply couldn’t understand why she believed she wasn’t monitored or why she acted against her gut feeling when it came to the character of certain people in her life. She was one of those special unicorn kind of girls, the one who has no friends at all, is super smart and has two handsome guys lusting for her from afar. I just felt like I have dealt with a character like that a million times before.
The beginning of the sequel seems promising in terms of them mixing things up with the narration, but I will see if I can enjoy it more. This definitely won’t make it into my favourites list for now.
Fazit: 2.5/5 stars! Could have been better executed.
Have you had trouble with NetGalley requests as well? Have you read this series and feel different than me?
Life and Other Disasters 
It sounds like an interesting story. I’m sorry you found the novel lacking in important areas. Hopefully the sequel will be much better.
By the way, that book I told you about, Awoken, I ordered it on Kindle today (the book I checked out of the library yesterday proved to be too ridiculous in the first two chapters to go further). I don’t know if I’m going to like it or not, but it should be interesting to dive into a Lovecraftian story with a YA slant.
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I think the initial idea behind the story was good, but it could have been done differently in the big picture.
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If I had a dollar for every horror movie I’ve seen where that happens.
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Yet you still love the genre.
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It has a lot to offer. And not all the horror films I’ve seen are bad. Some of them are actually very good on a number of levels.
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Yeah I’ve heard people say that about people accidentally getting sequels quite a bit lately
maybe they should make that clearer!! That would really bother me! Anyhoo- I am so beyond done-to-death-dystopias right now!! Parts of it sound creepy- buuut the issue is I’ve already read this story, more than once 
Great review though!!
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I think it should be like on goodreads, where you can see which part of a series it is. There was no way I could have guessed it from the description alone. I can’t believe I still have to read that all *sob*
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Ah yes definitely agree with you there!! Oh dear!!!
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[…] As you know, I’ve read the first book in this duology (?) only recently. You can check out my review for Mindwalker HERE! […]
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[…] Mindwalker by A.J. Steiger (2.5 stars) […]
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Ah that’s such a shame, seems like an interesting concept. I feel some authors bite off more than they can chew with dystopian novels. Great review, sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy it!
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Thank you! I thought the premise sounded promising too, but I guess I expected too much of the author. Dystopian isn’t as easy of a genre as some people think, especially making it sound original.
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Yeah, it feels so disappointing if they have a good idea and then it all falls apart in the execution. I’ve had a few really snoreful ARCs from netgallery recently that have put me off requesting. Dystopia is growing in popularity at the moment so hopefully there’ll be some fantastic books being released this year. I’m desperate the read The Power by Naomi Alderman which looks like it might deliver the traumatic experience I look for in my reading 😂
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Ooooooh, I’ve heard about The Power! It sounds so fascinating. I totally get the NetGalley frustration though. It’s really hit or miss a lot of the time.
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