Review Detail

Unplugged’s premise relates directly to our modern day societies obsession with technology. In this world, much like ours, having the latest apps mark your place within society. Their lives are live completely virtually. No one in this world has ever seen the sun, ocean, trees, real food, etc…Instead they live in a world where you can download an App that can make you grow wings and fly, or receive supermodel looks. In fact there are a million superficial ways that you can transform yourself into something “better”. I’m not going to lie, I thought that the premise of the App World was pretty cool at first. While it was hard to imagine what it would be like to only experience life virtually I think that the author did an excellent job in creating this world. I felt that it was very vivid and that the reasoning behind it’s creation was realistic. The creators wanted a world where they were able to obtain a limitless amount of pleasure while these citizens never have to worry about injury, disease, or other ailments to which the human body is prone. I mean, couldn’t you see people in today’s society joining that world? I could.

Skye was an alright character. I didn’t necessarily think that she was special but she did have depth. Skye did everything that she could to return to her family and was willing to do what she needed to do in order to save people and to prevent a war from happening.

A lot of people feel like this books plot pace was slow but I disagree, I think that if we readers weren’t allowed the time that we were given to get to know the App World we wouldn’t have been able to understand to the fullest extent why Skye wanted to unplug. At first, the world seems interesting, exciting even, but as we progress into the story we see how little it differs from the real world. The rampant shallowness of this world set the tone for how things were run by it’s creators/goverment (hint: very poorly). A scene that stands out is when they are having a funeral and the citizens are more concerned about making it into a party or a political rally than paying respects to the grieving families. Even though I feel like a large part of character growth came from within these chapters in the App world, at times I couldn’t help but wish that we would get to the action sooner, so that’s why I’m taking a star off of my rating.

The romance itself was….not my favorite. I’m not going to spoil it, but I will say that I wasn’t a fan of the love interest. I couldn’t really understand why Sky was interested in a certain character, especially when the character was very deceptive and seemed to hold on tightly to the virtues of the App World but other than that it really wasn’t the focus of the story.

Overall, I am very excited to read the sequel. Unplugged had intrigue, betrayal, a little romance and a lot of plot twists. If you are looking for an intelligent new dystopian series that deviates from the genres usual tropes I would highly recommend Ungplugged.