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rinku's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I originally gave Slated 4.5 stars but after reading the other books in the trilogy, I would rather give 4 stars since the series becomes so much better with later entries. When I read Slated for the first time, I must’ve been 13 or 14 and obviously time has passed, and I could barely remember anything. This made the series even more exiting because I had some distanced feeling of familiarity but not much more.
Slated is your classical early-2010s teen dystopia insofar as we have different societal groups and a big evil government that is oppressing teenagers. The main character Kyla got slated because she was supposedly a criminal, meaning all her memory got wiped away. But of course, Kyla is special, and the slating didn’t work correctly so she remembers things that she shouldn’t remember. The first book of the series mainly introduces us to the setting and the characters and together with Kyla, we try to figure out the mystery around why she’s been slated.
The problem is that I can’t say for sure if the plot is predictable or not since I don’t know how much of the plot I’ve remembered vs. how much I’ve predicted. But I had the feeling that some moments are more predictable. But that was not a problem for me because for some strange reasons I liked the plot so much, even if it’s nothing too special. Maybe it was because the life of Kyla was so structured? And I generally like books where no character is telling the truth and the MC has to figure out who she can trust and who not. It takes some time until the pace picks up; this only happens in the last hundred pages. But then, the story becomes quite engaging and interesting. The ending is so good as well that you instantly want to know what happens next.
I also really liked the dystopian side of the story. The dystopian elements weren't too much that it became unrealistic, but just the right amount that it didn’t feel flat. It is also quite questionable and lets you think about the topics around punishment and reintegration of criminals into society. It becomes clear that the system in Kyla’s world is so morally wrong; especially the point that some people get slated because they have such a deep trauma so that they had otherwise no “use” again for society disturbed me. It funny as well how the book predicted Brexit; of course, Brexit didn’t have the same consequences, but I still like it.
I’ve read Dark Blue Rising by the same author last year and I was kinda disappointed by it, especially by the writing style and the unexciting plot. I was afraid that there would be the same problems in Slated – but luckily, they weren’t. The writing style was so much better and tense here which surprises me since the book is almost ten years older? There are different translators for those series, so maybe that is reason and it’s not the author?
The only thing that was not so great about this novel were the characters. Generally, the character constellation felt quite cliché and the characters themselves are still a bit flat here. Our MC Kyla is the classical YA protagonist. She’s something special, is good at everything, and all the boys are into her even though she doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. I still strangely like her and rooted for her to figure out the secret around her true identity.
Talking about boys, the love story is really not great. There is literally no chemistry between Ben and Kyla and Kyla’s feelings towards him are not depicted in a way that is understandable. Moreover, there’s a lack of likable female characters in the story – like I said, classic teen dystopia. Some of their irrational behaviour is explained in later entries of the series, but others are just mean to each other because they are both girls.
One a last side note, this book talks about a cure for autism as if it was something utopian that no autistic people exist anymore. This idea that autism is something that needs to be cured is extremely offensive and I wish this would’ve been reflected on. Nevertheless, Slated had everything that I wish for in a teen dystopia, besides deep characters. But this luckily changes with later entries in the series.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Drug abuse, Rape, Violence, and Blood
Minor: Death
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