Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Survive the Dome

If we had this kind of technology, I could easily see this book become a reality, which is terrifying. Overall a solid book that makes an important point, but the characters, while likeable, were flat, and the writing was a little repetitive.

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dododenise's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book had potential to be great but didn’t quite make it in the end.

There are many things I liked about this book. The concept of telling a BLM story with scifi elements is fantastic! I loved the focus on protest and community. The story was told with a high pace and was filled with action. The words flowed easily and I was easily inside the story. Telling these kind of stories is so important and this one definitely got its message across in a powerful way.

However, by about the halfway point I started to notice some issues. The first one I noticed was that I was really missing the establishment of the relationships between characters. I was missing character interactions and conversations. A lot of this comes down to a lack of show instead of tell. The book was telling me Jamal cared about Marco but it didn’t really show me. Until the end I didn’t have a clear picture of their dynamic. This was even worse with Cathrine.

The voice of this story, told from Jamal’s perspective, had some clunky moments. He was telling me a bunch of things I’d much rather see the story tell me instead of him spelling it out to me. For example, he kept saying stuff like “I’m a journalist so I’m…”. He was really pushing on the point that he’s a journalist and he has certain characteristics because of that. I’d much rather see and find these characteristics myself!

There were also some moments where the dialogue was very clunky and not realistic at all. Sometimes it was really odd and sounded like an amateur writer wrote it.

Lastly, the scifi aspect of the story came short for me. This is probably more of a taste issue. But I really hoped that the story would lean more into its scifi elements and the possibilities this creates.

I listed a lot of issues I had but it’s definitely not like I didn’t enjoy this book. I definitely did and I’m glad I picked it up! Especially the first half really got me.
Overall, I’d say this is a powerful book with great potential that didn’t quite get there sometimes.

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beckyraines's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

As an adult reading this, it’s very clearly a YA dystopian novel. The language is simple and the characters are…teenagers! And act like it!

The dystopia being set in the world we live in right now in the United States was interesting and challenging and heartbreaking. The sci-fi tech was believable and depressing as I considered how plausible those scenarios were.

It’s a good YA novel and refreshingly focused on queer BIPOC characters. As an adult, it’s probably good that I wasn’t totally compelled by the teenage romance!

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haley49's review against another edition

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emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I really liked the dystopian genre lately and this fit the bill. I enjoyed the characters and how they all had their own strengths. I think it did a great job of implying that real world isn’t too far off, even if it was a bit hand-fisted in with it’s main theme(s).

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maggies's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Mostly focused on how three teenagers respond to police brutality/government surveillance, but I wish there had been some attention to why Governor Ambrose made the choices she did and/or how the political atmosphere evolved to result in the creation of the dome. World building was very light, which is maybe explained by the fact that this isn't a far-flung dystopia. I never really connected with Jamal, Marco, or Cat. Jamal's narration was a bit corny at times, and the ending definitely had me rolling my eyes.

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aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

A generally good read. The characters could use some more fullness but overall they were good characters that advanced the story in an engaging way for me. The things happening in this book (outside of the advanced tech) has happened in real life and the way the treatment of black and brown people by cops and the general attitudes of cops in the book are also just like real life. That's what makes this book so scary to me is that society and cops are already like the book in so many ways but without the tech. And because of that, the tech that is used in the book feels like a very real/attainable thing.
I did enjoy the emphasis of "united we are strong" and that a lot of minorities were briefly included in standing up for black people and in the protests to remind those of us who are non-black minorities that we need to stand with our black counterparts because white privilege and white supremacy is so insidious and hurts everyone.

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kc_onmybookshelf's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective tense

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

Really important and powerful topics. Good characters, though I wish they'd had a little more development.

It felt like maybe this book had a rushed editing process because there were quite a few errors or storyline inconsistencies and some things felt rushed.

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