Review Detail

This is definitely my kind of book. It has an originality about it that is hard to create in the dystopian genre. I love that. As soon as I started it, I was sucked into this crazy world, just praying I wouldn’t be interrupted. Alas, life happens, but every time something came up I couldn’t wait to get back to reading. From the outside in, this is a great looking book. Beautiful cover, clean interior formatting, extremely good editing. I was definitely impressed.

Terrorism is a constant cause of sleepless nights for the people, their fear leaving them open to the enormous amount of control the government is gathering. Biological weapons. That’s the boogeyman of the day. In order to prevent these threats, daily living has been restricting. Congregating at sporting events or concerts is prohibited along with driving. Food is delivered. And now there is an antidote that must be taken every day to lessen the toll the bio weapons can take on the population.

Tommy and Careen are just teenagers. Each has their own sad story and each is on their own. When Tommy’s antidote isn’t delivered on schedule, they think they will die. That’s what they’ve been led to believe. When death doesn’t come, they start to uncover the truth of a conspiracy that involves them in ways they’d never imagine.

The premise of this story is fantastic. A government agency tricking the entire population into taking drugs to keep them under their control. And it’s written in a unique way, with chapters representing chunks of time.

The story feels slow at times, probably due to the fact that it continuously switches to follow different people. Most of the story-lines I found interesting, but there is one in particular that slowed things down considerably. Towards the end, the pace picks up quite a bit as more action enters into the story.

The strongest part of the story is by far the characters. Tommy and Careen are young, but brave. They haven’t known each other for long, but they watch out for each other and I respect that. It’s a lot of fun to see them evolve from the lonely teens who are barely getting by in life, to the strong and courageous kids who just want answers. Those answers are what will decide their next move. How far into the resistance they will entrench themselves will depend on what they find when they start forcing the right questions.

An exciting beginning to a unique story that only leaves me wanting to know what happens next.