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A review by sarahlreadseverything
The Elites by Natasha Ngan
2.0
I'm more than a little sad about this one, because I wanted to like it so bad! Post-apocalyptic setting with ethnically diverse characters? Sign me straight up! Unfortunately The Elites had some major problems.
Firstly Ngan has a real tendency to tell, rather than show. It's very much "thirty minutes later this happened, and this happened, and then the next day this happened," which after a while just gets boring and repetitive. I'll admit this improved a little in the second half of the novel, but only a little (just enough to bump the overall experience up to two stars).
The characters also suffer from not being particularly well built. Many of them have completely contridictory traits (e.g. Silver's meant to be a terrible Elite, but whenever she's in a crisis her training comes out and she starts running around with guns, with perfect aim and general fighting skills). Others just fall a little flat and were difficult to picture in my mind's eye as the reader. The romance element was kinda sweet, but I just didn't believe in it enough.
Faults in the plotting also stood out. At multiple points new characters get convineantly thrown in. Not a lot happens in the first half of the novel, while to much gets crammed in the last quarter. Some of the set-up is just wrong, from a purely scientific perspective, in ways that could have been easily rectified to make it more believable.
To be honest, I think I'm more disappointed with this book then I have been for a while. It could have been great. It wasn't, and I'd be trepidous about trying Ngan again.
Oh also, what's with the White washed cover? The main character of The Elites is Chinese, and that girl definitely is not.
Firstly Ngan has a real tendency to tell, rather than show. It's very much "thirty minutes later this happened, and this happened, and then the next day this happened," which after a while just gets boring and repetitive. I'll admit this improved a little in the second half of the novel, but only a little (just enough to bump the overall experience up to two stars).
The characters also suffer from not being particularly well built. Many of them have completely contridictory traits (e.g. Silver's meant to be a terrible Elite, but whenever she's in a crisis her training comes out and she starts running around with guns, with perfect aim and general fighting skills). Others just fall a little flat and were difficult to picture in my mind's eye as the reader. The romance element was kinda sweet, but I just didn't believe in it enough.
Faults in the plotting also stood out. At multiple points new characters get convineantly thrown in.
Spoiler
Like Ooooohh Silver has a much older brother that we didn't know existed until three quarters of the way through, that she had also somehow forgotten about until that moment? Butterfly's family are alive after all!To be honest, I think I'm more disappointed with this book then I have been for a while. It could have been great. It wasn't, and I'd be trepidous about trying Ngan again.
Oh also, what's with the White washed cover? The main character of The Elites is Chinese, and that girl definitely is not.