**Spoilage**
* Five WHOLE Stars!*
Not Four. Not Three and three quarters. Five whole stars. Yes. I enjoyed the FECK out of this book.
From the time I started reading this....beautiful piece of literature, I could not wait to write this review. And as you can see, I gave it five stars. The first book I've read this year that has gotten five stars...probably not the last, because The Ward is pretty much knocking my socks off as well. BUT....first things first.
From the time I started reading this....beautiful piece of literature, I could not wait to write this review. And as you can see, I gave it five stars. The first book I've read this year that has gotten five stars...probably not the last, because The Ward is pretty much knocking my socks off as well. BUT....first things first.
Can we just take forever a few moments to admire the unbridled beauty that is this cover? It caught my eye the moment I saw it on my library's ebook lending site. The DNA woven into the strands of her hair...lovely. THEN I read the blurb.
The whole 'Nurture Vs. Nature' theory has been a source of great debate for quite some time and I've always been a little on the fence about it. In Uninvited it shows you the population who are solidly on the nature side. People who believe that it does not matter what you are taught; that you are bound to the legacy that your DNA provides. Even if you haven't and may never do anything wrong.
In Davy's Uninvited world, there's a "killer gene" also known as 'Homicidal Tendency Syndrome'. Whichkinda sucks. Everyone is tested, not a single person is exempt. Even children. And if children test positive, they are isolated from the rest of their family. Most parents even give their children up. HTS carrier logs are public record and the moment you do something violent, you get branded with a big ass black H on the side of your neck so people can openly stare, mock and shame you know you're a carrier. Before that, you have to wear a neon orange ID card with your name and picture so folks know you have HTS. Yeah. The shit is cray.
Anysnooch, Davy tests positive for HTS and her entire life changes. Her friends turn their backs, her boyfriend acts funky; even her parents walk on eggshells around her. Even though she hasn't actually done anything violent. It doesn't matter. She has HTS. She will kill someone. Eventually. During this, she gets Uninvited from her fancy dancy school. They don't expel you. You get Uninvited.
I can really go on and on about this....but I won't spoil it for you. Because you are all going to read this. Buy it on ebook, borrow it from your library, or buy it in print - ONE of the three. Because you need to reaaad this! Where was I? Right. Skipping down.
She gets Uninvited, gets a case manager for her HTS and has to go to public school. There are a handful of other students there with HTS and they all have class together. They do not change classes, they do not leave the room and - I shit you not - they sit in a cage during school hours. They do their work in there, eat in there and basically live in that cage, at their desks for the entire school day. The "teacher" sits outside the locked cage at his desk ignoring the feck out of them as best he can.
Understandable. They're all future murderers. Duh. *Rolls eyes*
There's a guy there, his name is Sean and he has his big, black H stamped on his neck. He looks like he'll snap Ms. Songbird Davy in half if she twitches her eye at him funny. S'okay. I like him. LOTS of stuff happens, and Davy eventually gets chosen for a program that I won't tell too much about because, like I said, you're going to read this. Soon. She does okay in said program, but as there are also about 20 other people there with HTS who vary in age, skills and intelligence, her piano playing and singing isn't really a talent that is very helpful. Unless they've found a way to turn a voice into a weapon of mass destruction.
I dunno. But in my opinion, Davy does okay.
What I didn't necessarily like: The "bad" things that happen, don't really seem all that bad because the result was too easily obtained. Am I making sense? Like, the reaction justified the action because said action got Davy and the other characters exactly where you figured they'd be. Or exactly where the author wanted them to be. So, in a way, the bad things weren't really so bad because a couple of them felt like plot devices and not so much an aw-fuck-I'm-screwed kind of thing.
All my crazies out there will get it.
The ending. Wowzers. I liked it. And I'm sort of foaming at the mouth for the next one.
So why did this get five stars instead of 4.5? Because shit got real. Because Sophie Jordan was not afraid to write about the thing no one wants to write about but everyone has an opinion on. She said the things no one wants to say and she did it so eloquently and so interestingly that anyone can read this and relate or identify with it somehow. The things that happened in this book could very well be the future of our world. One day, someone could decide to isolate an entire sect of people simply because of something they might do. Or something others like them have done in the past. The discrimination is disgusting and there were many times I wanted to throw my kindle and scream because the injustice of it all was really getting to me. On a powerful level. The fact that someone had gotten so far into people's heads with hatred and fear and caused them to hate and fear perfect strangers just struck a chord in my heart. It reminded me so very much of racism.
And I am not going to go any deeper into that aside from this: Do not judge someone on who you think they are, their exterior or what you think they might do one day. Get to know them and decide who they are to you and how they treat you. For all we know, you might kill me one day. You might not. I don't know and I cannot predict the future. And I shouldn't try.
-A.
In Davy's Uninvited world, there's a "killer gene" also known as 'Homicidal Tendency Syndrome'. Which
Anysnooch, Davy tests positive for HTS and her entire life changes. Her friends turn their backs, her boyfriend acts funky; even her parents walk on eggshells around her. Even though she hasn't actually done anything violent. It doesn't matter. She has HTS. She will kill someone. Eventually. During this, she gets Uninvited from her fancy dancy school. They don't expel you. You get Uninvited.
I can really go on and on about this....but I won't spoil it for you. Because you are all going to read this. Buy it on ebook, borrow it from your library, or buy it in print - ONE of the three. Because you need to reaaad this! Where was I? Right. Skipping down.
She gets Uninvited, gets a case manager for her HTS and has to go to public school. There are a handful of other students there with HTS and they all have class together. They do not change classes, they do not leave the room and - I shit you not - they sit in a cage during school hours. They do their work in there, eat in there and basically live in that cage, at their desks for the entire school day. The "teacher" sits outside the locked cage at his desk ignoring the feck out of them as best he can.
Understandable. They're all future murderers. Duh. *Rolls eyes*
There's a guy there, his name is Sean and he has his big, black H stamped on his neck. He looks like he'll snap Ms. Songbird Davy in half if she twitches her eye at him funny. S'okay. I like him. LOTS of stuff happens, and Davy eventually gets chosen for a program that I won't tell too much about because, like I said, you're going to read this. Soon. She does okay in said program, but as there are also about 20 other people there with HTS who vary in age, skills and intelligence, her piano playing and singing isn't really a talent that is very helpful. Unless they've found a way to turn a voice into a weapon of mass destruction.
I dunno. But in my opinion, Davy does okay.
What I didn't necessarily like: The "bad" things that happen, don't really seem all that bad because the result was too easily obtained. Am I making sense? Like, the reaction justified the action because said action got Davy and the other characters exactly where you figured they'd be. Or exactly where the author wanted them to be. So, in a way, the bad things weren't really so bad because a couple of them felt like plot devices and not so much an aw-fuck-I'm-screwed kind of thing.
All my crazies out there will get it.
The ending. Wowzers. I liked it. And I'm sort of foaming at the mouth for the next one.
So why did this get five stars instead of 4.5? Because shit got real. Because Sophie Jordan was not afraid to write about the thing no one wants to write about but everyone has an opinion on. She said the things no one wants to say and she did it so eloquently and so interestingly that anyone can read this and relate or identify with it somehow. The things that happened in this book could very well be the future of our world. One day, someone could decide to isolate an entire sect of people simply because of something they might do. Or something others like them have done in the past. The discrimination is disgusting and there were many times I wanted to throw my kindle and scream because the injustice of it all was really getting to me. On a powerful level. The fact that someone had gotten so far into people's heads with hatred and fear and caused them to hate and fear perfect strangers just struck a chord in my heart. It reminded me so very much of racism.
And I am not going to go any deeper into that aside from this: Do not judge someone on who you think they are, their exterior or what you think they might do one day. Get to know them and decide who they are to you and how they treat you. For all we know, you might kill me one day. You might not. I don't know and I cannot predict the future. And I shouldn't try.
-A.
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