Great story. Liked by both males and females in my class which is rare! ( )

I liked this book. It's totally my kind of book. It's only a 3 because I thought there should be more. ( )

2.5 Stars ( )

4.5 stars. I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I picked this up. It had been recommended to me as dystopian fiction, but once I got sucked in, it felt more like horror or an especially disturbing episode of The Twilight Zone.

The main character Eli isn't very likeable, and that's usually the first thing that starts me squirming when I'm in the deciding-if-I'm-going-finish stage of reading a book. He is the narrator, and he's cold and resentful. But it's not very long before we realize that Eli doesn't like himself very much and that he's carrying around a lot of guilt and regret (regret for the past and for the future he's anticipating) with no hope of relief or redemption. I listened to the audio book, and the reader did a nice job with Eli.

The description of the Compound where Eli and his family have lived for 6 years, believing they have escaped a nuclear attack, is intricate and thorough. Too much description can be a turn-off for me too, but this was so well done that I was fascinated. I especially liked how she imagined different types of psychosis would manifest in that situation.

There was a moment when I thought I'd hit the point of no return, and that was when Eli started talking about the "supplements". I had a very hard time believing that his mother would go along with it, that his father would demand it, and that Eli and Lexi expected to go along with it too. But the further I read (listened) the author pulled me back, and I saw that things weren't exactly as they seemed at first. It's still a little bit of a sticking point for me, rating-wise, but the quality of her writing and storytelling overrode any impulse to write off the entire book because of it.

Once something happens that gives Eli a glimmer of hope and horror at how his father has deceived them all , his character starts a rapid transformation into a person we can admire. Some might say too rapid, but I think all he needed was to see that redeeming himself was possible. It made sense to me.

The suspenseful race against time and his father at the end had me so worked up I had to bring the audio book inside and finish it over the weekend (this was my audio book for my work commute) since I didn't have the book on hand. For me, that's the true indicator that a book has made it-when I can't wait to hear more. The riddle to figure out the code was the only other thing that bothered me enough to downgrade my rating-it just seemed too far-fetched that his father would have set that up.

This book won me over despite some longstanding prejudices of mine about what types of plot and character I like. That's a testament to the author's excellent writing. I'm glad to see there's a sequel due out this year. ( )

I feel like the events going on beneath the surface of the situation in this book were pretty obvious, but I still wanted to know what would happen next. Pretty engrossing book, and well narrated. ( )