Review: The Forsaken

A thought-provoking and exciting start to a riveting new dystopian trilogy.

As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.

The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway



                                             
                                                       3 Smokin' Kisses

***

After reading the synopsis and watching the book trailer for The Forsaken , this was definitly one of my most anticipated summer reads. Upon actually reading the novel... well, it's one of those novels that I have mixed emotions towards. Stasse has a way of quickly launching you into her intruiging world once you open up the novel, ,however half way through the book I became extremely frustrated. The Forsaken is a mixture of the The Hunger Games & Divergent, which I loved, and Shatter me, which i despised. So as you can see, this is an extremely hard review for me.

First off, I enjoyed the characters. They were fresh and intruiging, and my favorite character of all would definitly be Gadya. She was totally bad-ass and heroic. David, Liam, Sinxen, Rika, the Drones , it's clear that stasse put lots of effort into building their personalities and character- and it definitly paid off. 

I enjoyed the action that took place within the wheel and the events that played out as they hiked to the gray zone. The characters sacrificing themselves to save the ones they love, Alenna becoming braver and stronger as she faced the struggles of the wheel, it was definitly a fun, intruiging read.

HOWEVER.

What pissed me off enough to even slightly compare The Forsaken to Shatter me ?

The romance between Alenna & Liam.

Oh dear lord, it was horriid. WHYYY do authors do this?! WHY?!

Please allow me to break this down for all you authors out there, and any future authors wanting to write a novel.......Read carefully.

LACK. OF. CHEMISTRY. + CONFESSIONS. OF. LOVE = BIG. NO. NO.  

Please understand. When a character spends 2 days with another character, No they will not confess their love for the other person, No they will not defy everyone else they love for them- NO.

Liam & Alenna hardly know eachother for what... 3 days? When Liam takes her to the butterfly lake and tells her that he likes her and kisses her. I fail to understanddddddd. It was SO sudden, not even half way through the book, Alenna's 3rd day on the wheel and already they're in love. girl, please.

Once Alenna finds Liam in the pod near the end of the novel and tells him that she loves him and tells her mom he's her boyfriend, I'm thinking.... WTF? I'm sorry but... where did this all come from? after you "rescue" him again, you've still only known the guy for 3 days. I understand the whole ' death brings people closer ' thing, which is why its not completely wack, but still- I think all of us readers can agree that our favorite novel relationships are the ones that form after fighting side by side, or facing issues side by side, but not confessing their love. The love is clear, but doesn't need to be said. I felt that the author needed to state their love for one another, because they didn't have enough chemistry for it to be clear on its own.

Another thing that I will compare to Divergent & Shatter me.... the ending. On the scale of extremely good (divergent) and extremely bad (shatter me), Id say The Forsaken is pretty damn center... maybe even a little closer to the shatter me side. But definitly not as bad as Shatter me, since i didn't want to burn the book upon finishing it.

The ending in all 3 novels is comparable through the idea that the main character couples find a secret society that wants to rebel against their own corrupt society. But what I hated about This novels ending, is that it all ended... perfectly. Thats probebly the worse thing an author can do. Just because you kill off a couple of characters, doesn't mean it makes your novel more tragic and edgy. That only works if your ending can accompany it. I mean, near the ending it was great- Characters fighting for their lives, certain characters giving up their lives for one another, and only 2 characters being able to make it past the pipes and feeders, inside the building that was supposed to free them all. and then suddenly they find out, after their long trip and deaths and beatings... that the ones that get taken away by the feeders are actually being saved because its high jacked by the rebels..... facepalm.

That seriously killed the whole bad-ass, dangerous mood of the story. How could the ending be that peaceful ??! And then the whole thing with the minister at the wheel and the fakes...... Noooo. No. The ending was too polished and definitly ruined the story. It was truly disappointing and I think the author could have done WAY better. If the ending was atleast good, I might have over looked the horrible Liam-Alenna relationship and given the novel 4 stars.... but not a chance in hell with this horrid ending.

I might end up reading the sequel. I kind of want to find out what happens.... we'll see how I feel about this a little later once I dwell on it.

Happy reading!