Friday Reads: Uninvited by Sophie Jordan!!

For this week's Friday Reads I have a book that Octavia from Read Sleep Repeat recommended so highly that I preordered it as soon as I read her review for it and after reading some other very positive reviews, I was sure I was gonna love it.

After some debate about whether or not it is a dystopian, I think it is dystopian enough to be added to my 2014 Dystopian Reading Challenge.

Uninvited by Sophie Jordan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


When I first found out about this book I knew it had all the markings of a book I'd like and despite being called "a mix between The Scarlet Letter and Minority Report" it made me think more of Gattaca because of the way your genes determine your life. But it was after reading some truly amazing review and having a blogging friend that I had to preorder it that I did just that. And boy, am I glad that I did!

This is my first Sophie Jordan book and I'm quite sure it won't be the last, since I will be preordering the sequel of Uninvited as soon as it is available!

Uninvited is a story that it's extremely scary on how plausible and real it seems. I was alternatively angry and heartbroken for Davy and all of those treated like criminals without more reason than a gene that can be correlated to being a violent criminal.

Davy was always a golden girl, full of talent and that had a wonderful sheltered life till her life is turned completely upside down when her test for the HTS gene comes back positive. She gets "Uninvited" from her exclusive school and her future no longer exists as it once did. She gets treated like a criminal already and no longer seem to have allowed any rights, it's like she stopped being human all of sudden. It reminded me a bit of how the Nazi started the segregation and degradation of the Jews, making them less than human.

Fear is a powerful tool for those looking to grab power and if you pair with the fact that human beings when scared resort very easily into herd mentality and "us" versus "them" overly simplifying and taking any route that we're told is safe and will solve the issue... Uninvited is a fantastic book per se, with a great story, very good characters, action and twists, but what it excells at is providing food for thought.

Davy is character that has to change so much during this book, she has a lot of growing up to do, and she has to discover she really is, not what she is told she is. She needs to toughen up, she needs to be stronger and she needs to learn to trust her instincts and not let others dictate her choices, even if she's pushed and beaten both physically and mentally all the time. She has friends and she has help, she has Sean, but she still needs to learn to stand on her own two feet and despite how Sean helps her, he still isn't the safe or easy choice either.

The romance was developed slowly, with learning to trust each other and finding someone that gets to understand the position you're in, even if that means being a liability to each other.

The books ends with the story unfinished but at the right spot for an impass for our characters to find a way to move forward. I was very happy that this one didn't have a cliffhanger!

4.5 to 5 stars for this one. Great book to read and even better to make you think!



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Mark This Book Monday: Starters by Lissa Price!

For this week's Mark This Book Monday I have the first book of a dystopian duology that I had my eye on and then was approved for the second and final book on Netgalley.

This one is my first book for the Dystopian Reading Challenge 2014!

Starters by Lissa Price

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Starters is the first dystopian I read this year, and it was quite about time, since it's my fave genre and I hadn't read any dystopian yet so far!

Starters shows us a world that's changed after the "Spore Wars" and the society that's arised from the aftermath of it. The vaccines were made and distributed but since there weren't enough for everyone, the priorities were kids and elders. That means that now most of society are kids under 19 or Starters and people over 60 or Enders. There are barely any Middles and society has worked on extending life as long as possible.

How skewed this society was towards confort and priorities towards the Elders and how mistreated and dehumanized the Starters were, that was the biggest shock for me in this book. Seems that society has stopped caring about the future and the future generations, and they're treated more and more like a burden or a bunch of slaves, and it also seemed like there was no sense of responsability towards the future generations at all, except for the exceptions of family members. Unclaimed minors were considered and treated as barely human.

Callie is one of those unclaimed minors, living with her lil brother on the run from the government since their parents died, and trying to find a way to make sure she can get money to provide a better life and care for him. She decides to try Prime Destinations, an agency that rents Starters bodies to Enders to enjoy feeling young again. Now that has to be one of the creepiest premises ever! Someone else being you, in your body? *shudders* At first she decides against it, but the situation gets more and more dire, so she finally goes for it. What she wasn't expecting is that her renter will be attempting murder using her body!

The storyline was quite interesting, the plot quite engaging and with plenty of wonderful secondary characters that I really enjoyed. There was plenty of action and the whole when will I be myself again while trying to prevent an assassination plot kept me flying fast through the pages.

The romance bit was a lil uncomfortable for me at the end, it was quite creepy when the final revelations came, and I'm not sure how I'd deal with that if I'd been in Callie's shoes. There was never a proper triangle, thankfully and I felt that it was well done otherwise. I'm not saying anything else to avoid spoilers though.

I liked how the ending solved the main plot line and gave us enough closure but also left enough of a trail to look forward to the second and final book on the series! No cliffhanger in this one was quite a release!

Quick read and engaging enough but there was a certain something missing for me, so I'm giving it 3 to 3.5 stars.



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Dystopia Reading Challenge 2014 at Blog of Erised!!

Yep, I am signing up for another challenge for next year. You might be wondering if I am not biting more than I can chew, but lemme tell you this challenge will complement my other challenge for 2014. Since I read a lot of dystopian books anyways cause it's one of my favourite genres to read (along with science fiction) I thought that joining the Dystopia Reading Challenge 2014 organized by Blog of Erised would be a good idea to keep track of all the dystopian books I read!

Since I already have a few dystopian series in my goals list for the  2014 Series Challenge and a few dystopian series that end next year that are in my most awaited list, I think I will be ok, and will manage to reach the 24 books challenge goal!




If you want to join in the challenge, check out Ula's blog post, grab the button and add yourself to the sign-in linky!