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breakingmandy's review against another edition
3.0
The only reason this book is getting 3 stars instead of 4 is because it is classified as a dystopian adventure for adults, but to me it still reads like a teen book. Otherwise, I loved this book, classifying it as an adult book is misleading though.
kenzee06's review against another edition
2.0
*I won this book in a GoodReads First Reads giveaway*
This book didn't do it for me. The story line had plenty of potential, but the writing was lackluster. The character development (what little there was of it) confused me. My main complaint was that everything in the story was told to you, rather than shown. We were told Mia was brave and outgoing, not shown through her actions. It got kind of irritating after a while and I just couldn't relate to her. I wish the author had spent more time building up to Mia's world before the run as well. If she knew it was going to be more than one book, why not actually build the world?
This book didn't do it for me. The story line had plenty of potential, but the writing was lackluster. The character development (what little there was of it) confused me. My main complaint was that everything in the story was told to you, rather than shown. We were told Mia was brave and outgoing, not shown through her actions. It got kind of irritating after a while and I just couldn't relate to her. I wish the author had spent more time building up to Mia's world before the run as well. If she knew it was going to be more than one book, why not actually build the world?
katrenia's review against another edition
1.0
This was just too out there for me. Ended up skimming the last half just to know how it ended.
squirrelsohno's review against another edition
2.0
THE REGISTRY piqued my attention for a number of reasons, mostly because it’s being published by William Morrow – an adult imprint of Harper Collins that also has gotten into the New Adult Market – and because it seemed like the perfect blend of THE HANDMAID’S TALE, MATCHED without the focus on romance, and even some of WITHER when it comes to male-dominated society. I thought that there would be something more adult about it, or at least something to set it aside from the young adult fiction entries that have clogged the market.
Ladies and gentlemen, I must admit – I have no clue why THE REGISTRY is not being published by a YA publisher/imprint, except maybe because the man who buys her as his wife is 28. This book might be presented as New Adult, but it isn’t that, either. There is no sex, no coming of age, no college, nothing that you might find outside plain old young adult. And on top of this, THE REGISTRY falls victim to the same tropes that plague many young adult dystopian novels – too much emphasis on the silly and the romance at the expense of the actual plot.
BUY YOUR WIVES ONLINE
Our heroine Mia is described as the most gorgeous girl in all of what’s left of America, a country that by some unbelievable (really, it’s unbelievable, nonsensical, etc) explanation has reduced women to either be purchased brides for soldiers who have been exiled from their families at birth completed their service or sold off to the government to be slave laborers. Women are trained to be perfect little Stepford Wives, except when Mia’s sister flees her abusive husband and her parents send her back to be murdered, Mia finds her sister’s magazine clippings about how the world is screwed up. Then she decides she must flee, taking her incompetent ditzy less pretty best friend with her on the run. Oh, and then they blackmail the hot farmhand to help them. Except Mia’s already been sold off to the handsome and filthy stinking rich Grant who will murder and maim just to have the chance to kill her with his own bare hands for ruining his plans.
THE REGISTRY falls short of its premise, which could have been a more adult version of some great plots that went south. Instead of rising to the occasion, it panders to the target audience which isn’t adults. This is a young adult novel through and through, from the characterization to the writing (which is nothing special) to the plot. THE REGISTRY brings nothing new to the table.
A CASE STUDY IN ORDINARY
Our protagonist Mia might be one of the blandest characters in recent memory. Her personality revolves around being pretty and suddenly, at the drop of a pin, deciding that everything she’s happily accepted in life is wrong based on one event that feasibly she shouldn’t have cared about. Her best friend Whitney isn’t much better, kept to little more than a plot device to be there and give Mia another reason to run and care. In fact, most of the characters seemed there just to fulfill a promise. Their emotions, their interactions, their entire being etc seemed little more than to get Mia, our dull heroine, from point A to B.
This is, however, with the exception of our villain Grant, by far the best character of the book. He’s a completely stereotypical villain, but he pushes a guy out of a helicopter because he’s incompetent. He pays $500,000 to marry a girl without her knowledge just to be able to kill her for his own peace of mind. He actually has some semblance of a personality in a world of boring, gray stock characters.
THERE’S A SEQUEL?
Needless to say, I think I am done with this series. Yep, it’s a series. I didn’t even bother reading the snippet from book two at the back, especially because by the end the story had suddenly turned into a love triangle with a guy that suddenly appeared and was a complete donkey butt, if you get my meaning. Mia’s world descended into an unbelievable series of events that any rational, able government could have cracked in seconds, and the bit about the helicopters seemed cheap. I think I’ll just stop while I’m ahead.
VERDICT: Skip it. THE REGISTRY brings nothing new to the genre except more frustration protagonists stuck choosing between limp boys being chased by a villain whose sole purpose in life is to be a villain. Nothing new here, move along.
Ladies and gentlemen, I must admit – I have no clue why THE REGISTRY is not being published by a YA publisher/imprint, except maybe because the man who buys her as his wife is 28. This book might be presented as New Adult, but it isn’t that, either. There is no sex, no coming of age, no college, nothing that you might find outside plain old young adult. And on top of this, THE REGISTRY falls victim to the same tropes that plague many young adult dystopian novels – too much emphasis on the silly and the romance at the expense of the actual plot.
BUY YOUR WIVES ONLINE
Our heroine Mia is described as the most gorgeous girl in all of what’s left of America, a country that by some unbelievable (really, it’s unbelievable, nonsensical, etc) explanation has reduced women to either be purchased brides for soldiers who have been exiled from their families at birth completed their service or sold off to the government to be slave laborers. Women are trained to be perfect little Stepford Wives, except when Mia’s sister flees her abusive husband and her parents send her back to be murdered, Mia finds her sister’s magazine clippings about how the world is screwed up. Then she decides she must flee, taking her incompetent ditzy less pretty best friend with her on the run. Oh, and then they blackmail the hot farmhand to help them. Except Mia’s already been sold off to the handsome and filthy stinking rich Grant who will murder and maim just to have the chance to kill her with his own bare hands for ruining his plans.
THE REGISTRY falls short of its premise, which could have been a more adult version of some great plots that went south. Instead of rising to the occasion, it panders to the target audience which isn’t adults. This is a young adult novel through and through, from the characterization to the writing (which is nothing special) to the plot. THE REGISTRY brings nothing new to the table.
A CASE STUDY IN ORDINARY
Our protagonist Mia might be one of the blandest characters in recent memory. Her personality revolves around being pretty and suddenly, at the drop of a pin, deciding that everything she’s happily accepted in life is wrong based on one event that feasibly she shouldn’t have cared about. Her best friend Whitney isn’t much better, kept to little more than a plot device to be there and give Mia another reason to run and care. In fact, most of the characters seemed there just to fulfill a promise. Their emotions, their interactions, their entire being etc seemed little more than to get Mia, our dull heroine, from point A to B.
This is, however, with the exception of our villain Grant, by far the best character of the book. He’s a completely stereotypical villain, but he pushes a guy out of a helicopter because he’s incompetent. He pays $500,000 to marry a girl without her knowledge just to be able to kill her for his own peace of mind. He actually has some semblance of a personality in a world of boring, gray stock characters.
THERE’S A SEQUEL?
Needless to say, I think I am done with this series. Yep, it’s a series. I didn’t even bother reading the snippet from book two at the back, especially because by the end the story had suddenly turned into a love triangle with a guy that suddenly appeared and was a complete donkey butt, if you get my meaning. Mia’s world descended into an unbelievable series of events that any rational, able government could have cracked in seconds, and the bit about the helicopters seemed cheap. I think I’ll just stop while I’m ahead.
VERDICT: Skip it. THE REGISTRY brings nothing new to the genre except more frustration protagonists stuck choosing between limp boys being chased by a villain whose sole purpose in life is to be a villain. Nothing new here, move along.
dmlindsay21's review against another edition
2.0
The plot was interesting and had a lot of potential, but the storytelling fell flat, ruining what could have been a very intriguing tale.
jeslyncat's review against another edition
4.0
I really, really enjoyed this book. I liked the idea, and the characters. I truly appreciated that the main character, Mia, is shallow and knows that about herself. I liked the boys in the novel--even though other than Grant, they have very, very little character development.
My only issue, and the only reason that I didn't give it five stars, is because there were moments where I genuinely did not understand why I was being told things. It takes a special author to be able to do an "info dump"--interject information into the story in a way that adds to the action and doesn't just tell me something that I'm supposed to know. Stoker really struggled with this. You would have a great bit of action happening, and then it would be ruined by a random speech with information for no purpose other than telling me those facts. And a lot of the information bore no impact on the CURRENT situation (or even the CURRENT novel). I didn't know that it was a trilogy until after reading it, and I am sick of these books relying on that fact. Each book should be able to stand on its own merits, and this novel didn't do that as successfully as it could have.
My only issue, and the only reason that I didn't give it five stars, is because there were moments where I genuinely did not understand why I was being told things. It takes a special author to be able to do an "info dump"--interject information into the story in a way that adds to the action and doesn't just tell me something that I'm supposed to know. Stoker really struggled with this. You would have a great bit of action happening, and then it would be ruined by a random speech with information for no purpose other than telling me those facts. And a lot of the information bore no impact on the CURRENT situation (or even the CURRENT novel). I didn't know that it was a trilogy until after reading it, and I am sick of these books relying on that fact. Each book should be able to stand on its own merits, and this novel didn't do that as successfully as it could have.
zombimomi's review against another edition
5.0
Stunning
This story was absolutely stunning. The world created is so vivid and detailed I was instantly drawn in. Such a deep intellectual subject. I loved this book, the emotional turns.
A definite must read. Will be reading the next in the series!
This story was absolutely stunning. The world created is so vivid and detailed I was instantly drawn in. Such a deep intellectual subject. I loved this book, the emotional turns.
A definite must read. Will be reading the next in the series!
alyssadanielson's review against another edition
2.0
This book was always between "did not like" and "it was ok." I'm rounding up to 2 stars to be nice. It sounded like the storyline would be intriguing, and it reminded me a lot of [b:Wither|8525590|Wither (The Chemical Garden, #1)|Lauren DeStefano|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1341532430s/8525590.jpg|13392566] which I loved.
Unfortunately, the writing just didn't do it for me. There were quotes like, "If Mia couldn't even get a boy to smile at her, how was she going to make it on her own?" Um, come again? My other favorite was, "She had killed someone for love, and her love knew it too." See? Not good.
There were several times the author explained something away with, "It was obvious that..." or "He obviously saw..." and I actually thought, "Wait, was that obvious? I didn't pick up on that. When did that happen?" Writing it that way just ended up feeling clunky and awkward.
The characters were all too flat or unlikeable as well. I really wanted to like our main protagonist, Mia, but I found her to be shallow and whiney. Even as she was supposed to have matured and grown at the end, I still didn't like her. That's a problem for me. I want to like at least one of my characters.
There's a love triangle (kind of) that just instantly popped up and caught me off guard, and I didn't even care which guy she chose. One guy had some red-flag moments for me, and the other was trying too hard. (I wanted to be sick every time he called her "princess." Although, to be fair, she was a princess, but not in a good way.)
I'll just go back to hanging out with my kick-butt, fantasy protagonists where I'm much more comfortable. Those women don't need smiles from men to get by.
Unfortunately, the writing just didn't do it for me. There were quotes like, "If Mia couldn't even get a boy to smile at her, how was she going to make it on her own?" Um, come again? My other favorite was, "She had killed someone for love, and her love knew it too." See? Not good.
There were several times the author explained something away with, "It was obvious that..." or "He obviously saw..." and I actually thought, "Wait, was that obvious? I didn't pick up on that. When did that happen?" Writing it that way just ended up feeling clunky and awkward.
The characters were all too flat or unlikeable as well. I really wanted to like our main protagonist, Mia, but I found her to be shallow and whiney. Even as she was supposed to have matured and grown at the end, I still didn't like her. That's a problem for me. I want to like at least one of my characters.
There's a love triangle (kind of) that just instantly popped up and caught me off guard, and I didn't even care which guy she chose. One guy had some red-flag moments for me, and the other was trying too hard. (I wanted to be sick every time he called her "princess." Although, to be fair, she was a princess, but not in a good way.)
I'll just go back to hanging out with my kick-butt, fantasy protagonists where I'm much more comfortable. Those women don't need smiles from men to get by.
kdurham2's review against another edition
4.0
Check out the full review at Kritters Ramblings
What if at the young age of 18, you as a young woman are put on a list with a price attached to your head and your parents will profit from the marriage? Along with this, the United States is no longer in tact, so there is a whole new world and if you want to escape this fate, you must go to Canada or Mexico and they aren't too friendly to immigrants. This is definitely an interesting take on dystopian and I loved how Shannon Stoker turned things upside down, it made me think about what the future could be.
What if at the young age of 18, you as a young woman are put on a list with a price attached to your head and your parents will profit from the marriage? Along with this, the United States is no longer in tact, so there is a whole new world and if you want to escape this fate, you must go to Canada or Mexico and they aren't too friendly to immigrants. This is definitely an interesting take on dystopian and I loved how Shannon Stoker turned things upside down, it made me think about what the future could be.
wayfaringbibliomaniac's review against another edition
5.0
Post-Trump America?
Well, then. This book definitely wasn't what I was expecting, but I was enraptured from the beginning. I could not imagine life as it was portrayed in this novel...
Well, then. This book definitely wasn't what I was expecting, but I was enraptured from the beginning. I could not imagine life as it was portrayed in this novel...