Review: Original rating of 2 stars
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 23, 2012
**UPDATE 11/13/12-Please be aware that since my original read through of this book, it has been edited and refined for a smoother read.  I have not read through this edition as of yet but I would venture a guess that it will most definitely be a 4/5 star read.  This story had a great premise but was so difficult to sift through the editing errors that I couldn't enjoy it as much as I was hoping.  Please don't let the below review scare you off as it was done prior to any formatting or editing changes.**DISCLAIMER: Below you will find my original review of this book which resulted in a 2 star rating.  Because of the author's exceptional way of dealing with the criticisms I've listed below, and because of his further explanation of the writing style, I am changing my review from a 2 star to a 4 star and will gladly read other pieces of literature by the author.  The comments presented by the author and the way it was done truly shows how much they appreciate the opinions and feedback of their readers and that means so much to an avid reader that I felt this was only appropriate.**So let me begin this review by saying that if the first sentence of the book was any indicator of the kind of book this was going to be then I would've loved it.  The first sentence reading "They rammed a four-inch spike down blue 316's urethra before they hung him.", led me to believe that this was going to be much more of an exciting read then it was.  I have many things to comment on regarding this book and I have outlined them below:*Why was this called the easy read edition?  From what I've read from the other reviews both editions (Industrial and Easy Read) were both hard to get through do to the massive amounts of errors throughout the book.  I understand that editing errors are going to happen but there are way to many things wrong with the way this story was written.-90% of the time the sentences weren't even capitalize.-Missing words or transposed words (i.e. instead of saying "You like LIKE sh*t" it says "You look sh*t).  Really?!  I can understand if this happens once but it's throughout the entire story!!-Location 902 "he was stood right next to them right on them almost."-Location 3408 "Can I, I ask myself, I and know I can, easily."These are just a couple of examples!  There aren't periods where there should be and way more commas than would ever be necessary.  I literally felt like I was reading one long run on sentence for the entire book, it didn't make it any easier that there weren't any chapters.  I don't know about most people but I don't usually sit down and finish a book in one sitting and when there aren't any real pauses or breaks throughout the story it made it hard to find a place to stop when I had to do something else.  When I came back to reading the story I had to figure out where I was and try to recall everything that had happened up to that moment.Grammar and other errors put aside, I still felt like the plot was very lackluster.  I didn't find myself caring about any of the characters, THE MACHINE, or what happened to any of them.  The main character was so whiny that I kept hoping he would off himself like he thought about doing so much throughout.  The best part of this entire story was the introduction to 66.  What a great character!  Completely crazed but totally a victim of his environment.  If the author had really focused on him as the antagonist rather than focusing so much on Blue 7s complaining I would've been able to deal with all the errors.  I understand that there is a undertone of Blue 7 possibly being crazy for the first little while but by the time the story finally came together (about 85% of the way through the story) I was done, I just wanted it to be over with.I did not appreciate that the author makes so many references to being outside THE MACHINE, wanting to be outside THE MACHINE, how to get outside THE MACHINE, and what's outside THE MACHINE without there being any real point to it.  If you're trying that hard to get your readers interested in a particular thing then maybe it should be at least somewhat relevant.  Along these same lines, an author shouldn't make something seem important if it means nothing to the story.  7 keeps talking about how there has to be a connection between 38 and 85 (I think those are their #s) and how 85 seems so distraught with what happens to 38 but then even in the end when you find out who 85 really is, you still don't get an answer to that.I would have to say that the last 15% of the story was actually my favorite.  Learning about 66 and the things he's been doing to survive as well as the things he's been doing due to his insanity was extremely interesting.  I hated that the author waited so long to introduce the only multidimensional character in the entire story.  While everyone else is busy being the mindless drone, 66 is the only one doing anything worth reading about.**SPOILER!**Then after everything is said and done, and Blue 7 is freaking out about seeing the sun one more time, he has to turn around and throw himself into THE MACHINE just to escape the Greys that are going to kill him anyway.  He should've just did the job himself at the beginning of the book and saved us all some grief.**END OF SPOILER**Additionally, with regards to previous reviewers suggesting that Americans don't appreciate good literature, I want to say this:If an author can't respect his readers enough to proof read (10x if necessary!), format correctly, and provide rich and realistic characters, then I'm not going to respect them enough to give a good review or read anymore of their work.  I've read way too many good books by outstanding authors to find this acceptable.P.S. If you like the basic premise of the story try reading Wool.  Some likeliness between the two but Hugh Howey is a much better author and takes the time to release good material that he has made sure will also visually please the readers (meaning good grammar, English, spelling, etc).