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A review by lucillemeeps
XVI by Julia Karr
2.0
This book had a lot of potential as a YA distopian novel. I really how the market is swinging into distopias; I find them so much more interesting than regular YA fiction and better quality reads than YA paranormal. That being said, as much as I love the genre, I wasn't crazy about XVI.
Set in 2150, XVI is a world controlled by a government remniscnet of 1984. They're always listening (except for all of those really conveniently placed dead zones.... you would think that the uber-powerful government would be more aware/concerned about those...) and people are under surveillence. Everyone under the age of 16 has a GPS chip implanted in them. Once you turn sixteen, you have the choice to have it removed, which struck me as a little odd. Another huge part of turning sixteen- or sexteen as they call it- is that girls are marked with tattoes on their wrists and are essentially up for grabs in terms of sex, whether they want to or not. Girls are brainwashed and bombarded with overt sexuality and are essentially taught to be airheaded sluts. The society in XVI is extremely mysogonistic.
There is also a hierarchy structure (tiers) to everything. For the most part, the upper tiers don't associate with the lower tiers, and yet they go to same schools? That didn't seem right. I mean, even now when we don't actually have specific labels of tier one to tier ten, there are good schools and bad schools, private school and public schools, rich schools and poor schools. You just don't get a wealthy kid from a high society family going to an underfunded inner-city school. And that is present times. Distopian fiction is always worse than the present situation. That's just how it goes. So realistically, there is no way that a tier-one or tier-two kid like Mike or Nina would be going to the same school as the top-tier Wei.
As I said before, there was a lot of potential, but the story just didn't quite get there. I didn't really feel the intensity and pressure from the government. I didn't get the sense of danger that I've felt in other dystopias. I wasn't afraid of them, and I think that that was because it was just too damn easy for people to thwart the government.
The NonCons were another issue for me. Firstly, was the name ever explained, or was it just given? I think that it might stand for non-conventional, maybe non-conformists, but I really don't know. The same thing goes for B.O.S.S. I have no idea what it stands for, and I would like to know a little more about it. Normally, I love rebel societies. They're secretive and dangerous and they get things done. They don't just go around telling everyone that they are part of the secret rebel society after a week of knowing each other, no matter how much they've bonded. And normally there is a bit more action than a few public announcements over the radio.... Good job, you hacked into the broadcast for fifteen seconds... that's going to make a huge difference...
There was also a disconnect with some of the objects in the book. Some of the futuristic items were named but weren't really explained. We were just supposed to figure out what it was from reading the context, which would have been fine if the description and context was a little stronger. And, this is going to sound really nit-picky, but 140 years in the future, I don't think that you're going to need a Band-Aid if you have a cut lip. I don't think that stitches will still be used in common medical practice. I mean, if you have a society that has levitating cars, then I think that you can figure out an alternative that is a little more advanced than a Band-Aid...
Nina was a decent character, I suppose, but she was a little clueless about some things (like that man that would come to the park and sit with her and her mom when she was young. I wonder who that would have been). One thing that I really did like about her though, was that she actually asked her friends and family for help :) It actually drives me nuts when the hero/heroine has so much on their plate and they decide that they can't tell people what's going on either because they want to handle things themselves or they don't want to put people in danger. Nina just can't keep secrets. I don't think that there is really anything important that happens to her that she doesn't tell at least one other person, which is so refreshing. She wasn't all angsty and holding things in. It was one of the redeeming qualities of the book; I didn't want to slap sense into the main character by the end of it.
I did, however, feel that everything was a little too easy and convenient. Nina didn't really have to work to find answers. She sat down in class one day and hey! what do you know? her parents were friends with the parents of the girl beside her! And that girl knows that other guy that she met by coincidence! Gee wow. I wonder if they have some answers about her family's secret past.
Ok. I need to stop writing. Originally, my rating was 3 stars, but the more that I think about what I didn't really enjoy in this book, the more that I want to give it a lower rating. Now I just fell disappointed.
Set in 2150, XVI is a world controlled by a government remniscnet of 1984. They're always listening (except for all of those really conveniently placed dead zones.... you would think that the uber-powerful government would be more aware/concerned about those...) and people are under surveillence. Everyone under the age of 16 has a GPS chip implanted in them. Once you turn sixteen, you have the choice to have it removed, which struck me as a little odd. Another huge part of turning sixteen- or sexteen as they call it- is that girls are marked with tattoes on their wrists and are essentially up for grabs in terms of sex, whether they want to or not. Girls are brainwashed and bombarded with overt sexuality and are essentially taught to be airheaded sluts. The society in XVI is extremely mysogonistic.
There is also a hierarchy structure (tiers) to everything. For the most part, the upper tiers don't associate with the lower tiers, and yet they go to same schools? That didn't seem right. I mean, even now when we don't actually have specific labels of tier one to tier ten, there are good schools and bad schools, private school and public schools, rich schools and poor schools. You just don't get a wealthy kid from a high society family going to an underfunded inner-city school. And that is present times. Distopian fiction is always worse than the present situation. That's just how it goes. So realistically, there is no way that a tier-one or tier-two kid like Mike or Nina would be going to the same school as the top-tier Wei.
As I said before, there was a lot of potential, but the story just didn't quite get there. I didn't really feel the intensity and pressure from the government. I didn't get the sense of danger that I've felt in other dystopias. I wasn't afraid of them, and I think that that was because it was just too damn easy for people to thwart the government.
The NonCons were another issue for me. Firstly, was the name ever explained, or was it just given? I think that it might stand for non-conventional, maybe non-conformists, but I really don't know. The same thing goes for B.O.S.S. I have no idea what it stands for, and I would like to know a little more about it. Normally, I love rebel societies. They're secretive and dangerous and they get things done. They don't just go around telling everyone that they are part of the secret rebel society after a week of knowing each other, no matter how much they've bonded. And normally there is a bit more action than a few public announcements over the radio.... Good job, you hacked into the broadcast for fifteen seconds... that's going to make a huge difference...
There was also a disconnect with some of the objects in the book. Some of the futuristic items were named but weren't really explained. We were just supposed to figure out what it was from reading the context, which would have been fine if the description and context was a little stronger. And, this is going to sound really nit-picky, but 140 years in the future, I don't think that you're going to need a Band-Aid if you have a cut lip. I don't think that stitches will still be used in common medical practice. I mean, if you have a society that has levitating cars, then I think that you can figure out an alternative that is a little more advanced than a Band-Aid...
Nina was a decent character, I suppose, but she was a little clueless about some things (like that man that would come to the park and sit with her and her mom when she was young. I wonder who that would have been). One thing that I really did like about her though, was that she actually asked her friends and family for help :) It actually drives me nuts when the hero/heroine has so much on their plate and they decide that they can't tell people what's going on either because they want to handle things themselves or they don't want to put people in danger. Nina just can't keep secrets. I don't think that there is really anything important that happens to her that she doesn't tell at least one other person, which is so refreshing. She wasn't all angsty and holding things in. It was one of the redeeming qualities of the book; I didn't want to slap sense into the main character by the end of it.
I did, however, feel that everything was a little too easy and convenient. Nina didn't really have to work to find answers. She sat down in class one day and hey! what do you know? her parents were friends with the parents of the girl beside her! And that girl knows that other guy that she met by coincidence! Gee wow. I wonder if they have some answers about her family's secret past.
Ok. I need to stop writing. Originally, my rating was 3 stars, but the more that I think about what I didn't really enjoy in this book, the more that I want to give it a lower rating. Now I just fell disappointed.