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taelights's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
2.0
I think I went into this book expecting too much. I've seen so many 4 and 5 star reviews for this plus so many booktubers and people on booktok mention good things about this book so I was really excited but I thought the book was pretty average. I'm a big fan of YA dystopian novels and this one is not going on my list of favorites.
I will preface this by saying I do intend to at least give the second book a try but if the series doesn't improve I won't read the other two.
I almost DNF this book but I decided to push through it. It does pick up towards the end and was entertaining enough in the second half but still it was predictable and nothing special.
World building is probably the most essential thing to me when it comes to dystopian novels and I thought while it did have a few interesting aspects most of it felt generic and left me with questions and wanting more detail especially about the history of this world. I hope in the next book this improves but I'm not impressed yet.
The romance annoyed me a lot. First of all the characters lacked chemistry and also I'm not a fan of insta-love at all and especially with this being "enemies to lovers" I was hoping for it to be a slow burn. Especially seeing as this is a 4 book series they should not already be in love or whatever at like 70% through the first book. I feel like enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers across the whole series would have been a way better approach to the romance and would have worked better with the plot. Plus it would have been a better way to build chemistry between the characters rather than sticking them together in a rushed fashion just so it could have a shallow romance to check off the romance requirement in YA books.
I didn't enjoy either of the main characters. June was a Mary Sue and Day was a Gary Sue. The author tied so badly to make these characters special it just came off as forced and unrealistic...
Like Day, Mr. "I'm so good at crime" that I'm only 15 years old yet despite me making dumb decisions throughout the entire book I'm supposedly the most wanted criminal in the entire Republic and the government can somehow never catch me. Mr. I can climb a whole skyscraper in mere seconds even if that is physically impossible and I can break into a bank in literally 10 seconds.and his only flaw, failing the Trial, ends up being a lie by the government so wow he's the only other person to ever get a perfect score other than June. Look how perfect he supposedly is.
And June, Miss I'm so smart I'm the only person ever in history to get a 100% perfect score not once but twice in the Trial everyone is required to take. Plus I'm graduating from the top university in the Republic in 3 years instead of 4 at the age most people are entering university plus I have so many skills that I'm absolutely perfect at and due to that at literally 15 years old I'm going to hold a high level high clearance position in the military. It made her so boring and unrealistic to me. She's literally the perfect example of a Mary Sue.
Also the plot was generic and literally two of the most important revelations/plot points in the books are literally such huge leaps that the characters make with very little information to form these conclusions yet somehow both of them end up being right which also was annoying to me.
I will preface this by saying I do intend to at least give the second book a try but if the series doesn't improve I won't read the other two.
I almost DNF this book but I decided to push through it. It does pick up towards the end and was entertaining enough in the second half but still it was predictable and nothing special.
World building is probably the most essential thing to me when it comes to dystopian novels and I thought while it did have a few interesting aspects most of it felt generic and left me with questions and wanting more detail especially about the history of this world. I hope in the next book this improves but I'm not impressed yet.
The romance annoyed me a lot. First of all the characters lacked chemistry and also I'm not a fan of insta-love at all and especially with this being "enemies to lovers" I was hoping for it to be a slow burn. Especially seeing as this is a 4 book series they should not already be in love or whatever at like 70% through the first book. I feel like enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers across the whole series would have been a way better approach to the romance and would have worked better with the plot. Plus it would have been a better way to build chemistry between the characters rather than sticking them together in a rushed fashion just so it could have a shallow romance to check off the romance requirement in YA books.
I didn't enjoy either of the main characters. June was a Mary Sue and Day was a Gary Sue. The author tied so badly to make these characters special it just came off as forced and unrealistic...
Like Day, Mr. "I'm so good at crime" that I'm only 15 years old yet despite me making dumb decisions throughout the entire book I'm supposedly the most wanted criminal in the entire Republic and the government can somehow never catch me. Mr. I can climb a whole skyscraper in mere seconds even if that is physically impossible and I can break into a bank in literally 10 seconds.
And June, Miss I'm so smart I'm the only person ever in history to get a 100% perfect score not once but twice in the Trial everyone is required to take. Plus I'm graduating from the top university in the Republic in 3 years instead of 4 at the age most people are entering university plus I have so many skills that I'm absolutely perfect at and due to that at literally 15 years old I'm going to hold a high level high clearance position in the military. It made her so boring and unrealistic to me. She's literally the perfect example of a Mary Sue.
Also the plot was generic and literally two of the most important revelations/plot points in the books are literally such huge leaps that the characters make with very little information to form these conclusions yet somehow both of them end up being right which also was annoying to me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Blood, Medical content, Pedophilia, Police brutality, and Torture
Minor: Medical trauma
I tagged pedophilia because one of the characters that is a grown man makes multiple moves on June, a 15 year old girl, throughout the book.
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