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A review by silencia167
Qualify by Vera Nazarian
3.0
Read this review and more on my blog, The Reality of Books: https://therealityofbooks.wordpress.com/
“You have two options. You die, or you Qualify.”
Qualify, by Vera Nazarian, tells the story of sixteen year old Gwenevere Lark. Gwen is a self proclaimed geek and klutz, living in the year 2047. Scientists discover an asteroid heading towards Earth that will destroy the planet, but descendants from Atlantis come down from space to offer their help—they will take a small percentage of people back to Atlantis with them, but those people must be in the their teens, they must smart, and they must be athletic. Gwen is definitely NOT athletic, but she knows that she has to try and Qualify. If she doesn’t, she’ll die. And if Gwen does qualify, she will have the option of participating in the Atlantis Grail and possibly becoming a full citizen of Atlantis—which would allow her to save her entire family.
I like Gwen. She's smart and a bit sassy, and she’s stronger than she gives herself credit for. I love how much she cares for her family, and how this trait stays with her throughout the entire book. I like how she relies on her brains and her inner strength rather than looks, making her a champion for geeks everywhere. Her family is also very relatable—the whiny little sister, the strong older brother, and the middle child brother. Gwen is sort of a mother hen to her siblings, a trait that both suits her character and informs her actions for much of the book.
I didn’t care for the romance, but that’s normal for me. I did appreciate that the romance took a backseat for most of the book. Gwen to me wasn’t a character that really seemed to fit the boy crazy mold, but she fell hard for Logan. And maybe that’s the way teen romance works—when you fall, you fall hard.
The world building in this is incredibly well done. The Atlantian culture is built around the ability to singing—singing controls all of the objects and technology of Atlantis, so perfect pitch is a helpful talent. The musical theory aspects were spot on, and I found it interesting how different quadrants of Atlantis worked in different musical areas—major, minor, flat, and sharp.
One of my biggest gripes with this book is that it could have strongly benefited from an editor. I received this as a DRC, but I recommended it to another friend to read (because she too loves dystopians) and she downloaded it from Amazon. We compared editions and noticed many of the same typographical and grammatical errors. The dialogue in many places is also stiff, using contractions where contractions would not normally be used in speech. This was a long book, and I’m not sure that it needed to be so long. Many things could have been much more concise. It only really starts to roll forward when we stop living in every second of Gwen’s life—and we don’t NEED every second. Stay with this book, and you won’t be sorry; the plot is a great concept and once the book makes it to the semis and the final it really rolls. But I fear many people won’t get that far.
3 stars.
**I received Qualify as a DRC from Netgalley. I was not paid to write this review. Qualify was published December 20, 2014, by Norilana Books.
“You have two options. You die, or you Qualify.”
Qualify, by Vera Nazarian, tells the story of sixteen year old Gwenevere Lark. Gwen is a self proclaimed geek and klutz, living in the year 2047. Scientists discover an asteroid heading towards Earth that will destroy the planet, but descendants from Atlantis come down from space to offer their help—they will take a small percentage of people back to Atlantis with them, but those people must be in the their teens, they must smart, and they must be athletic. Gwen is definitely NOT athletic, but she knows that she has to try and Qualify. If she doesn’t, she’ll die. And if Gwen does qualify, she will have the option of participating in the Atlantis Grail and possibly becoming a full citizen of Atlantis—which would allow her to save her entire family.
I like Gwen. She's smart and a bit sassy, and she’s stronger than she gives herself credit for. I love how much she cares for her family, and how this trait stays with her throughout the entire book. I like how she relies on her brains and her inner strength rather than looks, making her a champion for geeks everywhere. Her family is also very relatable—the whiny little sister, the strong older brother, and the middle child brother. Gwen is sort of a mother hen to her siblings, a trait that both suits her character and informs her actions for much of the book.
I didn’t care for the romance, but that’s normal for me. I did appreciate that the romance took a backseat for most of the book. Gwen to me wasn’t a character that really seemed to fit the boy crazy mold, but she fell hard for Logan. And maybe that’s the way teen romance works—when you fall, you fall hard.
The world building in this is incredibly well done. The Atlantian culture is built around the ability to singing—singing controls all of the objects and technology of Atlantis, so perfect pitch is a helpful talent. The musical theory aspects were spot on, and I found it interesting how different quadrants of Atlantis worked in different musical areas—major, minor, flat, and sharp.
One of my biggest gripes with this book is that it could have strongly benefited from an editor. I received this as a DRC, but I recommended it to another friend to read (because she too loves dystopians) and she downloaded it from Amazon. We compared editions and noticed many of the same typographical and grammatical errors. The dialogue in many places is also stiff, using contractions where contractions would not normally be used in speech. This was a long book, and I’m not sure that it needed to be so long. Many things could have been much more concise. It only really starts to roll forward when we stop living in every second of Gwen’s life—and we don’t NEED every second. Stay with this book, and you won’t be sorry; the plot is a great concept and once the book makes it to the semis and the final it really rolls. But I fear many people won’t get that far.
3 stars.
**I received Qualify as a DRC from Netgalley. I was not paid to write this review. Qualify was published December 20, 2014, by Norilana Books.