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blogginboutbooks's review
4.0
Tense, exciting, stayed up WAAAYYY too late in order to finish it :) Wanted to give it 4 1/2 stars, but didn't know how ...
mrshollyanne's review
5.0
This was a VERY interesting book, which I thought was a one-off. I thought it was going to end on a bad note, until I realized there is a second book that came out last week! Woot!
laughlinesandliterature's review
3.0
*I received this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review*
This book had a decent plot and pretty good writing. The biggest issue for me is how often the characters fought and how unrealistic their escape plans are. It was just really difficult for me to get into the book. I think the Shepherd's writing was solid, but the book as a whole felt disjointed. I never fully bought into either love interest because it seemed like there were so many other things to be concerned about. Overall, I would give it 3 out of 5 stars and recommend it to sci-fi fans.
This book had a decent plot and pretty good writing. The biggest issue for me is how often the characters fought and how unrealistic their escape plans are. It was just really difficult for me to get into the book. I think the Shepherd's writing was solid, but the book as a whole felt disjointed. I never fully bought into either love interest because it seemed like there were so many other things to be concerned about. Overall, I would give it 3 out of 5 stars and recommend it to sci-fi fans.
petalish's review
3.0
This wasn't a bad book, the writing was decent, and the characters in the cage interesting enough, and the theme was unique and intriguing, with a bit of sci fi, and post apoc. I loved the premise: A bunch of humans are plucked up and thrown in a kind of laboratory/zoo kind of environment, and have to figure out what is going on, and how to get out. And Shepherd's writing and the overall atmosphere of the book hooked me in enough that I read it through to the end, and onto the follow up novels.
But what let it down for me was the romance side of things, there didn't seem to be enough to justify the interest between the alien and Cora. It just came across as creepy, he watched her for years, captured her, experimented on her, and yet she falls madly and instantly in love with him, based off a couple of small interactions. It felt forced, and unrealistic.
So overall, the premise hooked me in, the writing style kept me reading, but the characters and the plot let me down.
But what let it down for me was the romance side of things, there didn't seem to be enough to justify the interest between the alien and Cora. It just came across as creepy, he watched her for years, captured her, experimented on her, and yet she falls madly and instantly in love with him, based off a couple of small interactions. It felt forced, and unrealistic.
So overall, the premise hooked me in, the writing style kept me reading, but the characters and the plot let me down.
kailaflick's review
3.0
I...do not know how I felt about this book. It held my attention, certainly. And the premise was interesting. I mean, a human zoo in space? Who wouldn't want to read that? The characters were good, if not a little on the cliche side. But there was just something about it that I can't put my finger on that made me feel uncertain about it. And it wasn't my inane fear of aliens. Maybe it was the forced romance that I wasn't feeling until the end? I don't know. But I did like it enough to feel like I want to read the next book.
sarah_heyyy's review
5.0
Not at all what I expected, but once again, Megan Shepherd does not disappoint. #TheCage
allaurae's review
2.0
Official Rating: 2.5
Thoughts:
I'm giving this a 3-star rating only because there were some really nice passages on human nature, and overall the story grew on me towards the end.
Update - you know what? Actually, no. 2-stars, based solely on how damn long it took me to finish this book.
Other than that? The book was downright painful.
I feel like it was trying so hard to be mysterious that I was unable to really figure anything out - who to trust, what was going on, where they were. Now, I understand that sometimes that's the point - put a whole bunch of unreliable characters into an unreliable situation with an unreliable time-limit, and leave the audience on the edge of their seats until the last moment. And heck, for some stories, that works.
This one, however? I spent so long at the beginning trying to wrap my head around what was going on that all the sections devoted to explaining the childish games and puzzles that the group was trying to solve felt like I was reading an entirely different novel.
Overall, it seemed like the story was trying its absolute hardest to balance the dystopian elements with the comical and 'look-at-these-teenagers-who-are-totally-teenagers-did-you-know-that-they're-teenagers?'-ness that in the end, the story just became a bit of a jumble. And by the end of the story, there was so much going on, and so many plot twists, that I legitimately got a headache trying to keep up with it all.
In the end, there were some sections of the book that I had to skim and/or read 3-pages at a time to get through, and there were others in which so much was happening that I found myself unable to look away.
And yes, there were some sections that I really, honestly enjoyed reading. I thought the progressing story of Cora's relationship with her father and the entire car-crash backstory were paced very well. Also, I quite liked her relationship with Cassian.
Finally, I wanted to comment on the Kindred. I did like the ambiguity of them - as a reader you wanted to hate them, but I liked that inkling of doubt that we were given by the implication that maybe, perhaps, they saved the group's lives. I also really liked the implication of 'uncloaking' - especially Cassian uncloaked. Wooh.
And, as small as it may seem, I did really appreciate the simplicity of the ranking system, wherein a person's status is denoted by the number of knots in their uniform. It was certainly nice and easy to keep up with, and quite refreshing from the overly-complicated system that tends to grace many dyspotian and sci-fi novels.
All in all, despite how painful I found the majority of the book to be (no pun intended), the ending was intriguing enough that I may yet end up reading the next book.
So long as there's absolutely no mention of Nok.
Thoughts:
I'm giving this a 3-star rating only because there were some really nice passages on human nature, and overall the story grew on me towards the end.
Update - you know what? Actually, no. 2-stars, based solely on how damn long it took me to finish this book.
Other than that? The book was downright painful.
I feel like it was trying so hard to be mysterious that I was unable to really figure anything out - who to trust, what was going on, where they were. Now, I understand that sometimes that's the point - put a whole bunch of unreliable characters into an unreliable situation with an unreliable time-limit, and leave the audience on the edge of their seats until the last moment. And heck, for some stories, that works.
This one, however? I spent so long at the beginning trying to wrap my head around what was going on that all the sections devoted to explaining the childish games and puzzles that the group was trying to solve felt like I was reading an entirely different novel.
Overall, it seemed like the story was trying its absolute hardest to balance the dystopian
Spoiler
/post-apocalyptic?Spoiler
(not unlike those which the characters got about FOUR TIMES A GOD DAMN PAGE)In the end, there were some sections of the book that I had to skim and/or read 3-pages at a time to get through, and there were others in which so much was happening that I found myself unable to look away.
And yes, there were some sections that I really, honestly enjoyed reading. I thought the progressing story of Cora's relationship with her father and the entire car-crash backstory were paced very well. Also, I quite liked her relationship with Cassian
Spoiler
, and to be honest I didn't see the twist of him being the Warden coming. Though to be fair, that might have had more to do with how staggered my reading of the book was, and how disinterested in it I was towards the beginningFinally, I wanted to comment on the Kindred. I did like the ambiguity of them - as a reader you wanted to hate them, but I liked that inkling of doubt that we were given by the implication that maybe, perhaps, they saved the group's lives. I also really liked the implication of 'uncloaking' - especially Cassian uncloaked. Wooh.
And, as small as it may seem, I did really appreciate the simplicity of the ranking system, wherein a person's status is denoted by the number of knots in their uniform. It was certainly nice and easy to keep up with, and quite refreshing from the overly-complicated system that tends to grace many dyspotian and sci-fi novels.
All in all, despite how painful I found the majority of the book to be (no pun intended), the ending was intriguing enough that I may yet end up reading the next book.
So long as there's absolutely no mention of Nok
Spoiler
or her goddamn babysophiedebolle's review against another edition
2.0
The story objectively does not make sense (let's escape from this place in space where we are stuck? do you have a spaceship???) but since I read this when I was (too) young and I had little objective judgment of what made a good book and thus I enjoyed it. It is a 2/5 just for the memories
zu_reviews's review
3.0
I really loved the concept of this book and I got I vested in the characters. I particular, the side characters.
The MC, Cora, has a really "Not Like Other Girls" thing going on though and it was very annoying. I also felt some of the world building lacked sense - the aliens have all this technology and yet they're very weak and not very intimidating. The attraction of Cora to Cassian is beyond unbelievable.
The MC, Cora, has a really "Not Like Other Girls" thing going on though and it was very annoying. I also felt some of the world building lacked sense - the aliens have all this technology and yet they're very weak and not very intimidating. The attraction of Cora to Cassian is beyond unbelievable.
freyaluna's review
4.0
I am not quite sure about my opinion. First I saw too much cliché's. Too much developments which I found not realistic. The trianglerelationship which came back: nop had enough of that. But the last chapters did change a lot and did make the book a lot better than exepected. It is written good, but I guess the last chapters weren't that much developed as the rest of the book and came quite sudden. It was a good book though.