When the cover of your book says it is for fans of the Hunger Games it is both a curse and a blessing. I picked this book up because of that recommendation, but I expected a little more from the book because of that too. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but it was still an above average read.
It’s starts out in the underground world of the Enclave, a small society made up of hunters, breeders,and builders where the oldest of them barely live to see twenty-five. The main character, Duece, is inducted as a hunter and paired with a boy named Fade. As hunters they must gather food for the group and face the Freaks who live in the tunnels around them. These zombie-like creatures feed on the people of the underground. When Duece and Fade are banished from the Enclave, they make their way to the surface and find our world is not as bad as the Enclave described it, but it’s not bucket of rose petals either.
Once I sat down with this it pulled me in and kept me interested with no trouble. It’s not as fast paced as Hunger Games and doesn’t deliver the sense of urgency, but I don’t think I would have even noticed that if it wasn’t for the line on the cover. Duece is feisty and brave and written very much like a real girl. She doesn’t depend on a boy to save her, but cares very deeply for her friends. While Fade and her do flirt around the idea of a relationship, that subplot doesn’t overwhelm the book. For that alone I would give this book four stars, because it seems like having a love story that takes over the action in the book is becoming the norm.
The dystopian future is well thought out and comes across very realistically. It’s easy to believe that it’s our world after a disaster. While it’s not very clear what has happened to leave the world this way, for the most part that is okay because the characters themselves don’t know what happened.
Overall, a good read. I just found out this is the first book in a series, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I liked where the story ended. Either way, I would recommend this book to anyone who is enjoying the recent spat of dystopian YA!