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obr 's review for:
Inside Out
by Maria V. Snyder
I'd been looking forward to getting this ever since I realised I adored [b:Poison Study|60510|Poison Study (Study, #1)|Maria V. Snyder|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388519019l/60510._SY75_.jpg|1180409]. Yelena in a sci-fi dystopia? Oh yes. Except this is not Poison Study level. Trella is not Yelena-worthy. And the story is you average young adult future dystopia. It feels so very sadly shallow compared with the complexities of Ixia, the close friendships and the believable romances. So Poison Study this ain't.
What it is involves a claustrophobia setting known only as Inside. Trella is a lowly scrub - effectively a maintenance worker in the pipes that support life Inside. There are also those known as uppers who do all the techy jobs, but they live, as the name suggests, higher up Inside and have cushy lifestyles. Or so the oppressed scrubs think. One day a "prophet" known as Broken Man shows up on the scrubs' level, spouting off about something known as Gateway. It's a mythical "way out" that gives scrubs hope... Only he claims it real, and needs Trella, the best pipe-climber out there, to help him collect some info from the upper levels. It's an offer she's more than willing to refuse, until curiosity gets the better of her.
So many questions I have relate to why Trella did what she did. Why help Broken Man when she wasn't interested in what he offered, be that false hope or information about her mysterious family (yes, that old chestnut)? She says she gravitates towards prophets to listen to them, but contradicts herself right away by saying she hates the prophets for spreading false hope and doesn't believe it. She illogically puts herself in danger to prove everyone wrong. She doesn't want to know about her family, and yet it's constantly dropped into conversations as an incentive for her despite her constant refusals. I just couldn't think of her as a stable character, let alone a potential leader of a rebellion.
Side characters don't feel fully formed, and relationships are unsatisfyingly shallow. They read like a list of names without faces (there's not a lot of description going on either). Romance rears is young adulty head, but feels contrived rather than natural. Why must boy and girl in proximity equal love without much development? Adults act like teens, older teens act like younger teens.
The actual action becomes like reading an MMO quest list: fetch the McGuffin, fetch another McGuffin so we can use the first McGuffin, take the McGuffin-burger somewhere/to someone else who can do a thing. Any problems? Oh, so-and-so just invented some new tech to overcome said problems (I couldn't help but compare how Ixia never relied on "because magic" to solve things even though it could have.)
I wanted to know what was the deal with Inside and Gateway and why the ruling elite were hiding things, but the pace meant any revelations (and there are very few) took a tediously long time to come to. Again, back to feeling like a video game where you have to work through everything no matter how pointless to get to the twist and the big boss fight. World building seemed pretty good to start with, but then started playing fast and loose with everything it established. It's not just characters being contradictory. There were times I'd compare the writing to moderately edited self published books.
Overall, if you're hoping for another Poison Study, this is not it. I found it impossible not to comapre them, especially given the writing tics such as the giving people odd nicknames and, if done by the main character, forcing eveyone else to use them as if they were real names. I still really want some answers to the dangling plot, so would try book two. If you like light young adult sci-fi you'll probably enjoy it more than I did.
What it is involves a claustrophobia setting known only as Inside. Trella is a lowly scrub - effectively a maintenance worker in the pipes that support life Inside. There are also those known as uppers who do all the techy jobs, but they live, as the name suggests, higher up Inside and have cushy lifestyles. Or so the oppressed scrubs think. One day a "prophet" known as Broken Man shows up on the scrubs' level, spouting off about something known as Gateway. It's a mythical "way out" that gives scrubs hope... Only he claims it real, and needs Trella, the best pipe-climber out there, to help him collect some info from the upper levels. It's an offer she's more than willing to refuse, until curiosity gets the better of her.
So many questions I have relate to why Trella did what she did. Why help Broken Man when she wasn't interested in what he offered, be that false hope or information about her mysterious family (yes, that old chestnut)? She says she gravitates towards prophets to listen to them, but contradicts herself right away by saying she hates the prophets for spreading false hope and doesn't believe it. She illogically puts herself in danger to prove everyone wrong. She doesn't want to know about her family, and yet it's constantly dropped into conversations as an incentive for her despite her constant refusals.
Spoiler
Yet she still introduces herself to Riley using those family names she's only heard once very recently and rejected? Why?Side characters don't feel fully formed, and relationships are unsatisfyingly shallow. They read like a list of names without faces (there's not a lot of description going on either). Romance rears is young adulty head, but feels contrived rather than natural. Why must boy and girl in proximity equal love without much development? Adults act like teens, older teens act like younger teens.
The actual action becomes like reading an MMO quest list: fetch the McGuffin, fetch another McGuffin so we can use the first McGuffin, take the McGuffin-burger somewhere/to someone else who can do a thing. Any problems? Oh, so-and-so just invented some new tech to overcome said problems (I couldn't help but compare how Ixia never relied on "because magic" to solve things even though it could have.)
I wanted to know what was the deal with Inside and Gateway and why the ruling elite were hiding things, but the pace meant any revelations (and there are very few) took a tediously long time to come to. Again, back to feeling like a video game where you have to work through everything no matter how pointless to get to the twist and the big boss fight. World building seemed pretty good to start with, but then started playing fast and loose with everything it established. It's not just characters being contradictory. There were times I'd compare the writing to moderately edited self published books.
Overall, if you're hoping for another Poison Study, this is not it. I found it impossible not to comapre them, especially given the writing tics such as the giving people odd nicknames and, if done by the main character, forcing eveyone else to use them as if they were real names. I still really want some answers to the dangling plot, so would try book two. If you like light young adult sci-fi you'll probably enjoy it more than I did.