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siavahda's review
5.0
Epic, saving-the-day lesbian and transgendered characters. PoCs. A complete lack of black and white morality. Humans being humans. Believable future. Healey gets ALL THE WIN for this one!
trisha_thomas's review against another edition
3.0
Hmmm...freezing people. Keeping them in a frozen state to be woken up later.
Great idea....It's not the first dystopian that I've read like this..but it was still an interesting idea. To take Tegan so suddenly, for her life to be taken so quickly, it was a shocking beginning.
But the story didn't have that hook or that drive to really hold me. I found it interesting, but I'm not sure if it's the deep politics, the theories and struggles over God and the thoughts He would have on it - but it ended up being very slow going for me. I felt myself slogging through chapters not enjoying it. Fascinated, yes, but not swept up in the story. I'm not sure if I'll read book 2. I'll have to see if the story stays with me and really pushes me to read more.
Great idea....It's not the first dystopian that I've read like this..but it was still an interesting idea. To take Tegan so suddenly, for her life to be taken so quickly, it was a shocking beginning.
But the story didn't have that hook or that drive to really hold me. I found it interesting, but I'm not sure if it's the deep politics, the theories and struggles over God and the thoughts He would have on it - but it ended up being very slow going for me. I felt myself slogging through chapters not enjoying it. Fascinated, yes, but not swept up in the story. I'm not sure if I'll read book 2. I'll have to see if the story stays with me and really pushes me to read more.
megatsunami's review against another edition
3.0
3 stars? 4 stars? Couldn't decide. This futuristic YA book started off really strong but became somewhat formulaic toward the end. I loved the opening, the well-written dialogue, the socially engaged protagonist and her protest-going friends, the characters who felt like real people. I thought the transition of her waking up in the future was convincing and well done - it seemed like how a real teenager would react (like the scene in her first day of class when she accidentally turns on all the advertising at once). I liked that she was the kind of person who thinks about issues of racism, immigration, etc. But - and it may just be that I've read too much dystopian/futuristic SF - at some point the plot started to seem really derivative. I still enjoyed the book a lot and would read a sequel.
Spoiler
Stylist and over-the-top media coverage? Hunger Games. Starship taking the elites away from dying earth? Elysium. Crazy Christian sect who wants you to do their will? "Parable of the Talents" by Octavia Butler. Unconvincing escape from evil army goon? "The Living" by Matt de la Pena. (Each of those probably has a few more examples to go with it.)joannethefairy's review against another edition
1.0
Good adventure story - just got a little clean/green preachy for my taste. There were some cool future gadgets, which was a highlight.
It felt a bit like a watered down ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (there is even a chapter with this name). And then mix in some guns and adventure. Which sounds good in theory but turned out a bit young for me and like I said above, preachy.
2 Stars - will not reread.
It felt a bit like a watered down ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (there is even a chapter with this name). And then mix in some guns and adventure. Which sounds good in theory but turned out a bit young for me and like I said above, preachy.
2 Stars - will not reread.
yapxinyi's review against another edition
3.0
I think the author paints a pretty believable picture of the future, which I liked.
I'd love it more if such issues were explored. It's my opinion and all, but it would have made the book more interesting to discuss about. Perhaps in the second book.
I'd love it more if such issues were explored. It's my opinion and all, but it would have made the book more interesting to discuss about. Perhaps in the second book.
raven_morgan's review against another edition
4.0
Tegan Oglietti is sixteen and on her way to an environmental protest with her best friend Alex and boyfriend of one day, Dalmar. She is happy and ready to take on the world. Then a sniper attempts to assassinate the Prime Minister and hits Tegan instead.
The next thing Tegan knows, she is waking up to her "second life". It is a hundred years later, and Tegan has been cryogenically frozen, a volunteer by stint of a form she signed allowing her body to be left to science. Everyone she knew and loved is dead.
The world has changed. Climate change has occurred: the seas have risen, temperatures have increased, meat eating is a rare thing, seen as earth hating.
From the beginning, Tegan fights. For information, for a computer, for freedom. She manages to get her way: moved to a house (mostly located belowground for coolness) with Marie, the head of the cryogenic revival project, and allowed to attend school. There she meets Bethari, Joph and Abdi, the boy who she mistakes at first for Dalmar.
Tegan is a believable and likeable protagonist. From the first page her voice is clear and true, and it is easy to always be on her side, even when she makes decisions that put her in danger. Healey writes her with a good balance of being scared and intrigued by the world she is reborn into. She sees the positive things - a world which is more ecologically aware, where gender, sexuality and race are more accepted in all of their variations. And she also sees the negatives immediately - Australia's no immigration policy, and the attitude towards people from the third world.
Each of the other teenage characters is written as well as Tegan. All of them are believable and all have their own voices and personality - this isn't a book where you find yourself having to figure out which character is which (as often happens in a lot of YA, I've found).
The pacing of the book is great, too, aided by a technique where Healey intersperses Tegan telling her story in the present (and inserting little nuggets of information to keep the reader interested) and in the past. Tegan is a fan of the Beatles, a fact that is used well to ground the reader and make Tegan more relatable in world foreign to the reader (but one that is all too easily imagined as a future of this world).
There is definitely a lot more to be explored in this future world, and in the conspiracies that Tegan and her friends have only begun to uncover.
Absolutely worth the read. I'll be looking forward to the next book.
The next thing Tegan knows, she is waking up to her "second life". It is a hundred years later, and Tegan has been cryogenically frozen, a volunteer by stint of a form she signed allowing her body to be left to science. Everyone she knew and loved is dead.
The world has changed. Climate change has occurred: the seas have risen, temperatures have increased, meat eating is a rare thing, seen as earth hating.
From the beginning, Tegan fights. For information, for a computer, for freedom. She manages to get her way: moved to a house (mostly located belowground for coolness) with Marie, the head of the cryogenic revival project, and allowed to attend school. There she meets Bethari, Joph and Abdi, the boy who she mistakes at first for Dalmar.
Tegan is a believable and likeable protagonist. From the first page her voice is clear and true, and it is easy to always be on her side, even when she makes decisions that put her in danger. Healey writes her with a good balance of being scared and intrigued by the world she is reborn into. She sees the positive things - a world which is more ecologically aware, where gender, sexuality and race are more accepted in all of their variations. And she also sees the negatives immediately - Australia's no immigration policy, and the attitude towards people from the third world.
Each of the other teenage characters is written as well as Tegan. All of them are believable and all have their own voices and personality - this isn't a book where you find yourself having to figure out which character is which (as often happens in a lot of YA, I've found).
The pacing of the book is great, too, aided by a technique where Healey intersperses Tegan telling her story in the present (and inserting little nuggets of information to keep the reader interested) and in the past. Tegan is a fan of the Beatles, a fact that is used well to ground the reader and make Tegan more relatable in world foreign to the reader (but one that is all too easily imagined as a future of this world).
There is definitely a lot more to be explored in this future world, and in the conspiracies that Tegan and her friends have only begun to uncover.
Absolutely worth the read. I'll be looking forward to the next book.
dpukansky's review against another edition
4.0
I couldn't put this book down! I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I never realized how much I enjoy science fiction novels until I am reading one again and want more and more.
Healy did an excellent job of narrating the novel in Teegan's point of view. I was confused at first because I did not realize that the story was flipping between past and present as Teegan was on the run, so I would want to point that out to anyone preparing to read the book. It was fast paced and it addressed a lot of political issues throughout the novel which I believed to be important, but I also found that it could be distracting at times. It would be interesting to use this novel while talking about ideas of a Utopian society as well between the Inheritors of the Earth and the New Australia and what the each wanted/achieved.
The story of Teegan was one of action and adventure as she is forced to acclimate to a future that she never realized/wanted to be a part of. She meets characters that help her along the way and she finds comfort in them and the way that they resemble her friends from the past. I believe that teens would enjoy this book as I know I had and I plan on purchasing the next one in the series so that I can continue to follow Teegan and Abdi.
Healy did an excellent job of narrating the novel in Teegan's point of view. I was confused at first because I did not realize that the story was flipping between past and present as Teegan was on the run, so I would want to point that out to anyone preparing to read the book. It was fast paced and it addressed a lot of political issues throughout the novel which I believed to be important, but I also found that it could be distracting at times. It would be interesting to use this novel while talking about ideas of a Utopian society as well between the Inheritors of the Earth and the New Australia and what the each wanted/achieved.
The story of Teegan was one of action and adventure as she is forced to acclimate to a future that she never realized/wanted to be a part of. She meets characters that help her along the way and she finds comfort in them and the way that they resemble her friends from the past. I believe that teens would enjoy this book as I know I had and I plan on purchasing the next one in the series so that I can continue to follow Teegan and Abdi.
beckykirk's review against another edition
2.0
Very simplistic, don't think I'll continue this series