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A review by montigneyrules
The Rule of One by Ashley Saunders
2.0
#readingchallenge2020 (my book that begins with an R)
YA Dystopian Fiction novels are a hot topic, ‘dime a dozen’. The key to standing out is creating a fully realized world, with a quick easy to catch on world-building atmosphere…unfortunately, this novel doesn’t provide that.
I wasn’t aware when choosing this novel, this was part of a trilogy-a few chapters in, I quickly realized this was going to be the long-set up novel..nothing was ‘really’ going to happen, and nothing really did.
The one positive: I did enjoy there was no romantic subplot; no fighting over one boy-no added sidekick character, this made the bond of the sisters stronger.
The ‘meh’: I felt a bit lost trying to understand the world. There is a ‘rule of one’ where no multiples are allowed, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, and everyone is microchipped, (but later we find out you can avoid surveillance with an umbrella?). The author never seems to fully explain why the ‘rule of one’ developed, besides ‘welp-we ruined American and this is how we ended up; resources and stuff’…this left me feeling confused as to how did they:
-round up everyone and pull this off? -what happened to current multiples? -what is the rest of the world like? -what are the roving guards looking for? -why does it seem Texas is only really intense and the other states are barren? -if the whole point is scare resources, why go all out to catch two girls? -if the country is poor, how did we get such high-tech gear? – All of this left the overall novel feeling like a poorly executed plot hole.
Besides all of the questions, my other issue was while the sister’s bond was good, when they dealt with disfunction, at certain points got a bit ‘whiney’ (for lack of a better word). The lack of development, made reading feel screenplay-ish. While the POV switched from twin-to-twin, they sounded very similar, so I often forgot who was the Title Character.
I do hope the second novel explains…well anything. I also hope since there was a half-baked ‘what happens to multiples born’ explanation, that this comes back up in the second novel.
Overall, quick read, kind of boring, way predictable. I’ll speed read the next two because I am interested in the resolve..unless someone provides a detailed wiki-page entry and saves me the time.
YA Dystopian Fiction novels are a hot topic, ‘dime a dozen’. The key to standing out is creating a fully realized world, with a quick easy to catch on world-building atmosphere…unfortunately, this novel doesn’t provide that.
I wasn’t aware when choosing this novel, this was part of a trilogy-a few chapters in, I quickly realized this was going to be the long-set up novel..nothing was ‘really’ going to happen, and nothing really did.
The one positive: I did enjoy there was no romantic subplot; no fighting over one boy-no added sidekick character, this made the bond of the sisters stronger.
The ‘meh’: I felt a bit lost trying to understand the world. There is a ‘rule of one’ where no multiples are allowed, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, and everyone is microchipped, (but later we find out you can avoid surveillance with an umbrella?). The author never seems to fully explain why the ‘rule of one’ developed, besides ‘welp-we ruined American and this is how we ended up; resources and stuff’…this left me feeling confused as to how did they:
-round up everyone and pull this off? -what happened to current multiples? -what is the rest of the world like? -what are the roving guards looking for? -why does it seem Texas is only really intense and the other states are barren? -if the whole point is scare resources, why go all out to catch two girls? -if the country is poor, how did we get such high-tech gear? – All of this left the overall novel feeling like a poorly executed plot hole.
Besides all of the questions, my other issue was while the sister’s bond was good, when they dealt with disfunction, at certain points got a bit ‘whiney’ (for lack of a better word). The lack of development, made reading feel screenplay-ish. While the POV switched from twin-to-twin, they sounded very similar, so I often forgot who was the Title Character.
I do hope the second novel explains…well anything. I also hope since there was a half-baked ‘what happens to multiples born’ explanation, that this comes back up in the second novel.
Overall, quick read, kind of boring, way predictable. I’ll speed read the next two because I am interested in the resolve..unless someone provides a detailed wiki-page entry and saves me the time.