Review: Gritty realism in a world barely removed from ours
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 7, 2013
This was an interesting book. It's not super fast paced, but given the overall story I think that doesn't work against it. The characters are interesting, especially Bryn. Watching her trying to come to grips with how her life has changed by what was forced on her during the kidnapping is actually very touching. There's no real romance here, though there are hints of her having a crush on someone which is fairly realistic for a teenager.I suppose that's my main impression. Realism. The author seems to have gone out of her way to make this as realistic as possible, given the content. The world described could well be our own. It's not all that different. The people aren't all that different, either.So why three stars? While it was an interesting read, it wasn't spectacular. It didn't draw me in and make me forget the world around me. It held my interest long enough to finish the book, and the hints of subplots to be explored in the next book made me seek that one out as well. This book did NOT end with a cliffhanger, which I appreciate. Things are resolved, and we move on.I do have one note about the ending, however. It just...ends. There's a paragraph and then the words 'the end'. It's like, with the stories all resolved, the author couldn't quite figure out how to wrap it up in a neat way so they just stopped writing and put 'the end'. It was a bit abrupt, though I found it more amusing than anything else.