Book Review: Extras by Scott Westerfeld

• Title: Extras (Uglies #4)
• Author: Scott Westerfeld
• Page Count & Publisher: 417 | Simon & Schuster
• Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia
• Format: Paperback
• Links: Amazon UK | Goodreads

Summary:
It's a few years after Tally bought down the Uglies/Pretties system and people are still pretty much finding a way. People are having more and more extreme surgeries to express themselves. This can even include a brain surgery to change your personality. We meet Aya Fuse who lives in one of these cities. She's a total nobody with a face rank of over 400,000. She wants to show a good story and finds a clique of girls who are into extreme stunts. If she shows the story about these girls are then she'll be launched into a world of fame and danger.

My Thoughts:
This final installment was definitely weaker than the main trilogy. The Uglies series works pretty well without this book. In fact, when I finished it, I didn't feel as though it had really added much to the overall story that we'd read in the previous books.

Tally isn't the focus here but she does appear later on in the book. It was pretty entertaining to read her bemusement at the new rules in this city. The Uglies/Pretties thing she understood! One of my main issues was how quickly this new system was put in place. From what I could work out of the timeline, maybe 2 or 3 years have passed since the end of Specials yet the world before is spoken of as though it was many, many years ago. Also, it seems to be a well established system. Certainly not the early days of a new culture. I expected there to be more fall out from the "mind rain" since it really happened so recently.

The technology of this future world was seamlessly blended in to everyone's life. There are video cameras absolutely everywhere and at times I wondered if this was supposed to be something of a social commentary!

The ending reveal left me going "huh? Why?". It was somewhat bizarre. A lot, actually.

My Rating:

Book Review: Specials by Scott Westerfeld

• Title: Specials (Uglies #3)
• Author: Scott Westerfeld
• Page Count & Publisher: 372 | Simon & Schuster
• Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia
• Format: Paperback
• Links: Amazon UK | Goodreads

Summary:
Tally certainly is Special indeed. She's become one of the super strong, super fast fighting machines created to keep the Pretties from figuring things out. She and Shay are given the task of wiping out the rebels of New Smoke, but there's still that nagging voice that something isn't quite right.

My Thoughts:
I raced through this one much as I did the other two. The whole series has proved to be a very fast read.

Tally doesn't seem to be as relatable in this one, she's too far removed from everyone else once she's a Special. She's pretty much programmed to look down on them and it kind of gets a little irritating!! But she has had her mind and memories changed yet again, she's only reacting the way she has been made to.

It was definitely interesting to see some more of this world, though I do wonder about distances. There's no sense of scale really to this world, other than the new city is quite far away. The world between towns is left to grow wild, there's an almost reverence for the natural world which is a theme running through the books.

In the end, Tally has some hard decisions to make about herself and her claim over her own body. I liked how she chose to end this.

My Rating:

Book Review: Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

• Title: Pretties (Uglies #2)
• Author: Scott Westerfeld
• Page Count & Publisher: 368 | Simon & Schuster
• Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia
• Format: Paperback
• Links: Amazon UK | Goodreads

Summary:
Tally has it all. She's now a Pretty, her clothes are amazing, she has a gorgeous boyfriend, she's about to be voted into the most popular group and she's going to the best parties. But there are times when she just can't escape the feeling that there's something not quite right. Then she gets a letter from her past and she remembers.

My Thoughts:
I wasn't expecting the Pretty world to be quite so creepy! It's non-stop fun and parties but something's seriously off. Throughout this book you find out more and more about why it seems so creepy and it really is not nice! We also find out more about the Specials, their utter ruthlessness and they seem to be somewhat separated from every body else.

I read through this one rather quickly again, the whole Uglies series was a fairly quick read. It's very enjoyable and well written. The world building is pretty good, we see more of the half of the city that the Pretties live in (it's much nicer than the Uglies part!) and then there's Andrew's tribe (which brings home more of how the Specials see themselves).

To be honest, I'm rather more interested in Shay's story. She's a very strong character who's forced to figure things out for herself, whereas Tally seems to always have a boyfriend to figure these things out for her and drag her along for the ride. Shay's hatred is obsessive and while part of it is explained in the events that happen in The Smoke, I wish we'd seen more of her character development. They're both driven to escape the city and find out the truth of what's going on. Shay's methods are a little more extreme than Tally's, but it turns out that Tally may be very special indeed...

My Rating:

Book Review: Wool by Hugh Howey

• Title: Wool (Silo #1)
• Author: Hugh Howey
• Page Count & Publisher: 542 | Arrow Books (Random House)
• Genre: Dystopia, Post-apocalyptic, Science Fiction
• Format: Paperback
• Links: Amazon UK | Goodreads

Summary:
In a post-apocalyptic waste land, the only safe place to live is in the Silo. The world outside will kill you in minutes. The rules of the Silo need to be followed to maintain order. Rule breakers are simply sent outside, an efficient punishment - discord is removed and the cameras outside are cleaned. Jules is one of these rule breakers, she has questions, and she may be the most dangerous person there is.

My Thoughts:
This was one of my most anticipated books of this year! I waited for the paperback to be released and immediately dove into the pages.

The world building in this is absolutely amazing! The Silo feels like a real place filled with real (for the most part) characters. The descriptions inside the Silo made it feel fully fleshed out and a place I could imagine. Only one or two of the characters felt a little one-dimensional but on the whole they were complex and felt like actual people.

It did take me some time to get through, I've been reading quite a bit of young-adult at the minute so it was refreshing to get back into a book so densely packed with words and storyline. The plot is as many layered as the Silo in some places. People's motivations and actions are not always as you expect and people's loyalties can and do switch.

I loved Jules as a lead character. She was strong and utterly competent, sure of her convictions even when she wasn't sure of her actions. Her reactions felt real and believable, even when placed into some truly horrifying situations. I think she's one of my favourite leads that I've read in quite some time.

Again, I loved the descriptions of the world outside. I want to know more about it! I love a good description of a devastated environment and this teased me with just enough to keep me happy!

I'm planning on reading the rest of this trilogy as soon as the paperbacks appear. The next part is out in hardback already so I may just cave and buy the Kindle edition!

Rating:

Book Review: The Departure by Neal Asher

This is one of the books that featured in my very first haul video! I bought it not long after Christmas.

• Title: The Departure (Owner Trilogy #1)
• Author: Neal Asher
• Page Count & Publisher: 498 | Tor (Pan Macmillan)
• Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia
• Format: Paperback
• Links: Amazon UK | Goodreads

Summary:
Alan Saul wakes up on his way to the Calais Incineration Plant. He can't remember much, but he does remember pain and his tormenter's face. He has an illegal AI in his head who reveals a world full of death and despair. Earth is a hugely overpopulated planet, ruled over by the Committee, watched over by the Argus Array. The Committee need to kill 12 billion in order to stabilise the population of Earth, Saul doesn't intend to let them.

My Thoughts:
This took me some getting through! The first quarter or so of the book seemed to take so long to get through but the second half flew by. It's probably because while I love love hard science fiction (and this is definitely in the ranks of hard sci-fi), I'm not the biggest fan of post-humans. Aliens and such are fine, but something about AI and computer enhanced humans just doesn't do it for me. Maybe I was just traumatised by the Borg as a child.

This Earth is a brutal, violent world where the sheer scale of human life has cheapened its value. The phrase "manswarm" is used a few times and it sums it up quite well. There are Zero Asset and Societal Asset citizens. The be a Societal Asset means you have use (unless you start asking questions, then you get taken away to be re-educated) and the ability to buy food. Zero Asset citizens are nothing.

The world building in this was pretty fantastic. You got a good idea of the sights (and occasionally the smells) around Saul. You can understand how this world came to be, especially with the snippets of future history at the start of each chapter. This world actually makes sense, it feels real. Horrifically brutal, but real.

At first I wanted to sympathise with Saul. He has no idea who he is, everything about him was wiped out during his torture. You want him to find his answers, find out who he was and how he reached that point. However, as he began to get his answers he moved further and further away from what it meant in his world to be human. He's downright disturbing at the end and I even began to ask myself if he was "the good guy" after all. He doesn't seem to want to cause suffering, only death. Some of the obvious "bad guys" were a bit stereotypical bad guy-ish. You knew they weren't good but lacked some depth that could have added more interest to the world and storyline.

I am planning on reading the rest of this trilogy, but it's probably not going to be a priority.

Rating:

Book Review: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Well, since I started a book blog to go with my YouTube Channel I thought I should actually post something! I'm going to try and review most of what I read on here with a few each month recorded as usual for uploading!

• Title: Uglies (Uglies #1)
• Author: Scott Westerfeld
• Page Count & Publisher: 425 | Simon & Schuster
• Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia
• Format: Paperback
• Links: Amazon UK | Goodreads

Summary:
Tally Youngblood is about to turn 16. She'll get her operation to turn her from an "Ugly" into a "Pretty". She'll get to party all night and sleep all day with the other Pretties. Her oldest friend, Peris, is already a Pretty and Tally can't wait to join him. Not long before her birthday she meets Shay, another Ugly not far from her 16th birthday. However, Shay would rather stay Ugly and look for "The Smoke" than turn pretty. Shay vanishes not long before she's due to have her operation and Tally is given a choice by Dr Cable from the almost mythical Special Circumstances: bring Shay back or stay Ugly forever. The choices she makes have far reaching consequences.

My Thoughts:
Uglies was actually recommended to me by a coworker, we've swapped book recommendations and always see if the other is reading something interesting! This was a pretty easy read and I got through the first three of this series in just over a week! I really enjoyed this one, it was definitely a good introduction to the world.

I didn't find Tally the most engaging of characters in Uglies, I was far more interested in Shay's story. At times it felt as though Tally was being swept along with everyone else, it wasn't until nearer the end that she took more control of her own path. She had a lot of lessons to learn and she definitely got there. There were some hard things to discover about herself and the world of the Pretties but she was a better person at the end because of it.

I did have a few questions about how sustainable this environment is, especially once you learned more about what is going on with the Pretties. An answer was given for the "important" people such as Doctors, but what about the dirty jobs that no one wants to think about? Where do all the resources come from? The relationships between the characters were a bit more developed than the world, though this may just be because Tally hasn't has cause to question the world around her.

On the whole I was pretty well absorbed by the story! I was certainly pleased that I had the next on hand to dive straight into!

My Rating: