I saw this book on Kindle Scout and picked up a copy during its free launch. The first thing to note is that this is an unresolved story. The book ends in a cliffhanger without any attempt at a resolution, so you will need to get Book 2 if you want to know what happens.
Carys Connor is, at first glance, a typical teenager: a small girl with tomboy tendencies, beset by insecurities, socially awkward, and jealous of her brilliant younger brother. Her parent are both shrinks, busy professionals and, to her mind, barely tolerant of their very average daughter. On her 18th birthday, Carys feels unwell and leaves school early after suffering a frightening hallucination. She wakes up in a psychiatric hospital, strapped down like a dangerous criminal. The ensuing nightmare makes for a compelling and intriguing story of survival in a post-apocalyptic aftermath, fuelled by her desire for freedom and revenge.
Fast-paced and hard-hitting, the narrative at first gallops along from one crisis to the next as Carys endures brutal treatment in the mental institution, all the while suspecting that she is a guinea pig in a sinister experiment. This is the most intriguing aspect: some of the other inmates in the facility have developed a specific super-power which gives them a certain advantage. The story starts out with a sustained pace and an intriguing plot, but it begins to drag at the 60% mark, and IMO stretching out the romantic angle so much was a poor decision. I totally lost interest in Carys's “first time”, and her apparent arrested development meant that in her twenties she was still talking and behaving like a mid-teen.
The story is narrated in the first person by Carys, a resilient, self-reliant character who earned my interest. Unfortunately, she swears non-stop (which quickly becomes annoying), overplays the tough-chick card, and her self-obsessed, angst-ridden inner dialogue is painfully repetitive. As per current trend, the heroine is excessively whiny and illogically unfair to the unbelievably patient and devoted hero. I prefer a more adult and realistic take on the kick-ass tough girl - see for example the
Roma Nova Thriller Series (6 Book Series)
.
Curiously, even though there are at least nine other main characters, we are only given the barest outline of the back-stories for half of them and nothing at all for the rest, which makes the narrative very one-dimensional and characterization a bit uneven. There is some very mild sexual content, graphic violence and a sense of overarching menace. Average amount of typos, missing words and grammatical issues, but not too distracting. I would rate this book a weak four stars. The plot is interesting, but the pace and world building could be stronger. Despite the abrupt ending, I would be interested in reading the sequel.
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