Review Detail

After reading the synopsis, I felt ready to five in to a great dystopian novel. The only problem, is this book is not that novel.

The Forsaken takes place many years from now after the world has reached a point of chaos in which many countries are starving. The UNA (composed of Mexico, Canada, and the USA) is formed in hopes of "somehow" stopping the chaos and the destruction. Teens are given a serum at the age of 16 in hopes of detecting if they have tendencies to become law-breakers or corrupt citizens and then are sent to an island.

This could have been a great trilogy, but the romance I think has already started to ruin it. The main character, Alenna, is immediately "drawn" to Liam for seemingly no reason at all. She sees him for one second and then "feels a connection." And by the end of the book they've both confessed love for each other even though they've hardly spoken to each other. Maybe there's some deeper meaning that will be revealed later on in the series, but right now it just seems stupid. Like, why can't teens just meet, decide they "like" each other, and then take things from there.

Another aspect that kind of ruined the story were the characters. The character development is usually my favorite part of the book. And maybe there isn't much going on because this is the first in the series, but some characters are already too much for me. Alenna meets another girl on the island name Gadya, and even though they barely know each other, Gadya is already telling Alenna what to do and who to date...And Alenna listens to her (for the most part). Yeah it's good to have a friendship, but she just seems controlling to me.

A lot events were also left unexplained. And I still have many questions, but I'm hoping they'll be be explained later in the series.

The Forsaken does move surprisingly fast, with lots of action, and plenty of explanations of the people. I would still recommend this in hopes that the series will only progress from here.