Gingerbouf Does Books

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

That's technically a 3.5 out of 5!!!

I am going to have to give Dystopia a break. I've been saying they're getting same-y for a while now, but it's getting worse. I think this would have been a pretty decent read if I haven't gotten to the point where I can sniff out plot points a mile off. In a time when Dyostopia is the new 'big thing' if you can't make a story original, you have to do something else to make your story stand out. There was just about enough of that in this one for me.

Good points were the characters. The heroin started out a bit naive and irritating but luckily grew out of that pretty quickly and the male lead had just the right mix of gruffness and sensitivity to make him likeable. The problem was that you knew they were going to end up together. Which just takes all the fun out of it and is a real flaw in these teen novels, the romance very often becomes the main story. I like a bit of romance, but I want it to be an added bonus not the entire plot!!

The story was ok, but not overly adventurous. There's the people living in relative safety and comfort on the inside, in Pods and the 'savages' that inhabit the wild of the outside. Girl from inside meets boy from the outside and inevitably sparks fly as they try to right wrongs and overthrow evil. I enjoyed a couple of the details, though I won't go into them for risk of giving away spoilers.

I'm sure there were a couple of bad points but unfortunately I have forgotten as this one has already joined the large collective of dystopian fiction that is swilling around in my head. After a while they just start to become the same book. I think the bad bits were only me being fussy anyway.

Suffice it to say there was enough to keep my interest and the author writes with a fair amount of skill, but it follows the same patterns as pretty much of the future set novels that have come before it. I blame the vast amount of Dystopian fiction for this not getting 4 out of 5.

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