Sunday, August 19, 2012

Ashley's Pre-reading of Paul's August Pick: The Forsaken

Title: The Forsaken
Author: Lisa M. Stasse
Year Published: 2012

Synopsis: As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.

The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway.

Why?: Honestly, I'm really only reading this because Paul picked it as his August book. I haven't looked into it very much, and I have no idea what it's about other than what the synopsis gives.

Expectations: I expect an interesting dystopian world with lots of conflict and hardship for the main character. I also expect there to be quite a bit of world-building. Paul liked this book a lot so I think I will too, since we have similar taste in books!

Judging a book by its cover: I am not really a huge fan of this cover. The colored lines remind me of some sort of matrix or plot, and the girl's face looks like it's made out of an islanth an observatory and a satellite... Maybe it will make more sense after reading it, but I probably would not pick this book up off the shelf based solely on the cover.

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