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A review by nicolemhewitt
The Cage by Megan Shepherd
4.0
3.5/5 Stars
This review and many more can be found on my blog: Feed Your Fiction Addiction
The Cage is an extremely unique story. Cora and four other teenagers find themselves in a strange copy of the earth – where four completely different climates and landscapes converge. They can’t figure out what’s happening to them at first, but it doesn’t take long for them to discover that they aren’t even on Earth anymore – they’ve been taken captive by aliens called Kindred who view humans as lower life forms. They’re given a few simple but somewhat mysterious and/or unfortunate rules – keep themselves healthy, complete the random puzzles that are found around their enclosure, and procreate.
Cora isn’t happy to be a lab rat, and she’s intent on finding a way out, but complications ensue when she starts to feel something for Cassian – one of the kindred. And when they realize what’s outside of their cage walls, no one’s particularly sure they want to escape.
What Fed My Addiction:
The mysteries.
There were quite a few mysteries that kept me guessing throughout this book. Who were the Kindred and why had they taken these particular humans captive (it didn’t seem to be random). What was the deal with the weird puzzles they had to complete. Why did the Kindred seem to want to cause friction within the group (especially where Cora was concerned)? What was beyond the Cage and was Cassian really on Cora’s side? It took up until almost the very end to discover some of these answers, and a few of the twists were surprising!
Crazy cage world.
The Cage itself was pretty fascinating, even if the science behind what it was and how it worked sometimes broke my brain to think about.
Relationships.
The relationships between all of these characters were intriguing and complex. And those relationships had a huge impact on how each character responded to being caged. I found all of the interactions between the characters really interesting!
Cassian.
I loved that Shepherd didn’t try to make Cassian too human. He didn’t think like a person, and he often didn’t understand their actions or motivations. His differences from humans were what made him truly interesting!
What Left Me Wanting More:
Characters’ actions weren’t always believable.
The one thing that bugged me about this book was how Cora thought she could plan an escape or do ANYTHING in secret once she knew that the Kindred can read minds (which they learned pretty early on in the book, so it’s not much of a spoiler). She was working on blocking them out, but no one else was, and it wasn’t like she was trying to keep her actions secret from the others. The fact that the Kindred could read minds just made everything else that happened seem nearly impossible – until the end when things made more sense (I won’t tell you how). But I just didn’t understand what Cora thought she was accomplishing or why she thought she was getting away with any of it. There were some other instances where the characters’ actions didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I feel like they’re too specific to mention without spoiling things, so I won’t.
Overall, I enjoyed this one, even if it did have some moments that had me scratching my head a bit. I was happy to be able to jump right into the second installment! I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***
This review and many more can be found on my blog: Feed Your Fiction Addiction
The Cage is an extremely unique story. Cora and four other teenagers find themselves in a strange copy of the earth – where four completely different climates and landscapes converge. They can’t figure out what’s happening to them at first, but it doesn’t take long for them to discover that they aren’t even on Earth anymore – they’ve been taken captive by aliens called Kindred who view humans as lower life forms. They’re given a few simple but somewhat mysterious and/or unfortunate rules – keep themselves healthy, complete the random puzzles that are found around their enclosure, and procreate.
Cora isn’t happy to be a lab rat, and she’s intent on finding a way out, but complications ensue when she starts to feel something for Cassian – one of the kindred. And when they realize what’s outside of their cage walls, no one’s particularly sure they want to escape.
What Fed My Addiction:
The mysteries.
There were quite a few mysteries that kept me guessing throughout this book. Who were the Kindred and why had they taken these particular humans captive (it didn’t seem to be random). What was the deal with the weird puzzles they had to complete. Why did the Kindred seem to want to cause friction within the group (especially where Cora was concerned)? What was beyond the Cage and was Cassian really on Cora’s side? It took up until almost the very end to discover some of these answers, and a few of the twists were surprising!
Crazy cage world.
The Cage itself was pretty fascinating, even if the science behind what it was and how it worked sometimes broke my brain to think about.
Relationships.
The relationships between all of these characters were intriguing and complex. And those relationships had a huge impact on how each character responded to being caged. I found all of the interactions between the characters really interesting!
Cassian.
I loved that Shepherd didn’t try to make Cassian too human. He didn’t think like a person, and he often didn’t understand their actions or motivations. His differences from humans were what made him truly interesting!
What Left Me Wanting More:
Characters’ actions weren’t always believable.
The one thing that bugged me about this book was how Cora thought she could plan an escape or do ANYTHING in secret once she knew that the Kindred can read minds (which they learned pretty early on in the book, so it’s not much of a spoiler). She was working on blocking them out, but no one else was, and it wasn’t like she was trying to keep her actions secret from the others. The fact that the Kindred could read minds just made everything else that happened seem nearly impossible – until the end when things made more sense (I won’t tell you how). But I just didn’t understand what Cora thought she was accomplishing or why she thought she was getting away with any of it. There were some other instances where the characters’ actions didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I feel like they’re too specific to mention without spoiling things, so I won’t.
Overall, I enjoyed this one, even if it did have some moments that had me scratching my head a bit. I was happy to be able to jump right into the second installment! I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***