Book Synopsis:
Thalli has fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds left to live. The toxic gas that will complete her annihilation is invading her bloodstream. But she is not afraid.
Thalli is different than others in The State. She feels things. She asks questions. And in the State, this is not tolerated. The Ten scientists who survived the nuclear war that destroyed the world above believe that emotion was at the core of what went wrong—and they have genetically removed it from the citizens they have since created. Thalli has kept her malformation secret from those who have monitored her for most of her life, but when she receives an ancient piece of music to record as her community’s assigned musician, she can no longer keep her emotions secreted away.
Seen as a threat to the harmony of her Pod, Thalli is taken to the Scientists for immediate annihilation. But before that can happen, Berk—her former Pod mate who is being groomed as a Scientist—steps in and persuades the Scientists to keep Thalli alive as a test subject.
The more time she spends in the Scientist’s Pod, the clearer it becomes that things are not as simple as she was programmed to believe. She hears stories of a Designer—stories that fill her mind with more questions: Who can she trust? What is this emotion called love? And what if she isn’t just an anomaly, but part of a greater design?
My Review:
3.75-4/5 stars. This is a hard book to rate because have mixed feelings about it. My general feeling is that this book tried to do too much. Some of it worked, and some of it didn’t. I love a good dystopian, but this isn’t the best I’ve read. I’ve never read a Christian dystopian before, though, so that was nice.
I saw one reviewer complain that this book was very similar to The Giver, almost a carbon copy. I noticed a lot of similarities early on, but it soon became its own thing and was pretty different to The Giver. I read dystopian, so I know all dystopian are going to have a lot of similarities because they usually follow the same basic ideas.
One thing I noticed about the writing in this book was that it had a lot of cliché lines. I've read multiple books recently that have included the lines "I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding." The author also described the main love interests eyes as having "flecks of gold" in them, which doesn't even make sense.
Something I enjoyed, though, were the descriptions of music. Music was a major part of the story, and every time Thalli played music, all her emotions and the way the music spoke to her was included. I love music, so I could relate to the feeling that a beautiful song can evoke. I also loved the idea included in this book that music is a way to sense God.
Speaking of God, now I'll talk about the Gospel message included in this book. I love Christian fiction, but that stuff felt a little out of place in a dystopian setting. The entire Gospel was pretty much told throughout the story, but it also takes place in a world where emotion and creativity have been removed, something that's impossible because God created humans. I think it would've worked better if it was more allegorical, like in The Chronicles of Narnia; something where the Christian message was still included, but it didn't feel like a Sunday school lesson.
One other complaint I have is that Berk, one of the main characters, felt a bit Mary-Sue-ish at times. It didn't really seem like he had any flaws. I still liked him as a character, but he was almost too perfect. There were never any moments where I was irritated by his actions/personality. Everything he did always seemed to work out, or a problem would magically be resolved because of an idea he had that never failed.
Content Guide:
There is no language at all and nothing inappropriate in terms of romance. I would recommend this for age 12 and up, mostly because there is a lot of medical procedures and death described, which could be too much for younger readers.
コメント