A review by bybookandbone
Radio Life by Derek B. Miller

3.0

Radio Life is hard to rate. I will say that the blurb let's it down quite a bit. Elimisha is not the main charcter of the book. She's really a side character with the two most prominent characters being Lily, a 71 year old woman and Alessandra, a 17 year old girl. The book sounds like a dystopian ya but it's not (this isn't a complaint, just a comment about the blurb).

It's a pretty solid dystopian, I found it entertaining. Unfortunately the antagonists (the Keepers) don't feel like an actual threat at any point. Sure, they might take out a few people but they can't defeat the Commonwealth (not a fan of that name, makes me think of colonialism). Their philosophy doesn't stand up to any scrutiny, as much of the philosophy in this book doesn't. Alessandra's choice in the end makes little sense, Lily's (and the leaders of the Commonwealth's) choice to find and then limit knowledge made little sense and wasn't explained (they believe their way forward is to research the tech/science of the past but then hide it from their own people and each other).
The ending seems like an entirely new novel but in one chapter...

Overall, when read for surface level story, it's fine but I think Derek Miller wanted to impart more on the reader. Unfortunately Radio Life just isn't thought out that well, odd as the author mentions doing a lot of research. I just wish I could have seen evidence of that.