Rating: WARTY!
I wonder how many of you realize that it's quite illegal in the USA, on pain of death, to publish a YA novel that's not told in first person? This is only an assumption, mind, but it's the only logical conclusion I can draw from the overwhelming numbers of such cookie-cutter novels I find. I am forced to assume that it's also illegal to publish a dystopian novel which is not part of a trilogy, too, and for the same reason.
This is all driven by Big Publishing who are far more likely to take you on if you can show them that you can bring them a cash cow by making three volumes out of a story that's hardly worth one. I think Amazon bears more than its fair share of blame for this. By forcing book prices down to a standard 99 cents (like a 100,000 word book takes no more effort to produce than a two minute song), it has also forced writers to break a single novel up so instead of one ninety-nine cent volume, the author at least gets a three dollar 'series'. Such is the world we have created for ourselves.
In this trope clichéd effort, Ruby is a 16-year-old girl who is forced into a camp for special kids (in this case, that's kids who have some sort of psychic power). This is all done in a grotesque, and conveniently unexplained fashion. The kids are brutally contained for no reason that's given (not in the portion I listened to which was about one sixth of the novel). Within a few paragraphs (it's hard to judge in an audio book) I had heard more than enough to turn me (and my stomach) against this novel because it was so ridiculous as to be a joke. This trilogy is quite evidently a great parody of something, but I can't figure out what it's parodying. Neither can I recommend a trashy novel like this, so cynically written to take advantage of YA mediocrity and a gullible and undiscerning readership. The narration by Amy McFadden was far too 'Valley Girl' for my taste, which didn't help. This is not a worthy read, and it's cured me of any desire to read or listen to any more novels form this author.
