Synopsis: Raised her whole life within the shelter of a robot-guarded dome, Sierra has no reason to question her life other than not wanting to follow her prescribed career path. When she begins to have dreams of a world outside of the dome, a world that should be habitable by humans, she begins to ask questions – dangerous questions that force her outside of the dome and into a fight for the future of the human race.
My Thoughts: ARC copy
This was a solid entry in the crowded post-apocalyptic YA genre.
Pros:
The characters are generally likeable and have well-defined personalities and motivation. The main supporting characters are given decent backgrounds that contribute well to the world building. Rather than just throwing a band of rebels together in the wild, for instance, Malachi , Rhys, and Ella, in particular are given storylines about where they come from, their experiences in the world, and how their lives intersect with other characters. Too often books will give secondary characters throw-away backgrounds or make them conveniently just band together. The fact that in this narrative they are developed in their own right adds a great deal to the story.
The world building in this book is strong as well. The differences between life inside and outside of the Sphere domes permeates the story from the descriptions of environments to the attitudes of the characters to the main plot developments. Steuernagel does an admirable job of throwing his inquisitive but guarded protagonists into a new world and allowing their navigation of the people and places they encounter to tell the story of the world. There are some necessary moments of “telling” the reader through explanations of the world for the benefit of the naïve newcomers, but it is not heavy handed.
The plot is interestingly unique. The combining of common YA tropes – teen girl escapes boring life to find out she’s a chosen one, robots vs humanity, special powers, finding out the outside world is totally different from the lies you’ve grown up with – all combine together in something new. It’s almost as if the author rolled up a ball of bits of playdoh and instead of coming up with an ugly brown blob, came up with a pretty swirled marble.
Cons:
My cons are fairly nit-picky for this book. My biggest issue was editing oversights. The writing itself is mostly strong and there aren’t a lot of distracting grammatical errors, but there were three places in the text where the wrong character name was used. Once is just a blip, twice you wonder if the author changed character names and missed changing them around in places, three times and you start to feel like maybe you’re the crazy one and the author is doing it intentionally. I find continuity errors to be particularly jarring when reading, but I sometimes find them in mainstream authors’ works as well.
Related to editing, is the use of some cliché descriptions and character reactions. One character, for example, is described twice as having chiseled features. In another scene, one character shushes another by putting his finger on the other’s lips. This probably wouldn’t feel as disruptive to the flow of the narrative in a romance novel, but feels awkward in a YA fit-for-your-life post-apocalyptic story. To be fair, this is a small issue and one that I would probably not have noticed as much had I not been reading knowing I was going to post a review.
My last issue is another small one. I feel like the role of Ember, Sierra’s protective personal robot, could have been built up a bit more to make her feel like a more important character. As it is, she seems like a bit of a throw away character whose only role is convenient plot device. Even using conversations between Sierra and other characters outside of the Sphere where she recalls specific memories with Ember would offer more background and make her feel like more of a critical piece of her life. This would also offer more opportunities for world building and character development.
Overall, this was an enjoyable read, especially if this is the author’s first published novel. I cared about the characters, the world was interesting with unique details, and the plot was different enough from other similar stories to make it feel like something new. I will be interested to see where the author takes the story in the next installment.
Interested in giving it a try? Check it out on Amazon here!
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