title: Those That Wake
author: Jesse Karp
genre: YA science fiction/dystopia
published: March 2011/ARC
pages: 329
source: Amazon Vine
first line: Mal looked in the mirror and saw a road map of mistakes.
rated: 2 1/2 out of 5 stars
About:
Those That Wake takes place in a dystopian New York City where an event called the Big Black has changed everyones lives forever.
This is a world where MCT (Metropolitan Counterterrorism Taskforce) watch everyone with special x-ray goggles. A giant black dome covers most of Manhattan, concealing nobody really knows what.
Everything is done via cellphone, and society is almost zombie-like as everyone walks around with their heads held down, eyes glued to their cell phones, sadly not unlike our world today. Even fast food is ordered via cellphone so no one really has to have any kind of human contact.
Nothing is private anymore, people and their personal information can be tracked down via their cell phones and credit cards, again not unlike our world today.
We get the story from the perspective of four people.
Mal is in search of his brother who awoke him in the middle of the night with a call for help. Laura's parents go missing and when she finally tracks them down, they do not know her. Mike is an disgruntled inner city teacher. Remak is a government agent. Teens Laura and Mal seem to have literally lost their identities, their loved ones and families do not have any recollection of them.
When these people all come together, they find that their lives are intertwined.
All of them have had similar strange occurrences happen to them in the past few days.
They all try to figure out what is going on and who is behind it.
My thoughts:
I've got mixed feelings about Those That Wake.
I really wanted to enjoy this book more. The cover is cool, the premise sounds good, I was in the mood for good dystopian fiction, but for some reason, it fell flat for me. The story seemed to grab me and hold my attention for a few chapters in the beginning, then it veered off and I lost interest. I'm stubborn and don't usually give up on books, so I read this one through.
I enjoy vivid descriptions when reading and I feel dystopian New York City has soooo much potential. I wanted to read about a gritty, grimy NYC, yet it was vague and at times confusing.
Now, what I liked was that there were elements of both science fiction and horror in the plot. The characters themselves were interesting. I liked that Mal was a street fighter and a foster child, you root for him from the start. Mal and Laura's characters and story lines were by far the most interesting in the book.
This is one of those books that you have to read all the way through to be rewarded with answers. The ending did give me some answers as to what was going on, but sadly I didn't really enjoy this one much.
That's not to say someone else might not love it, Those That Wake did get some good reviews on Amazon.com.
They came to the Eastern edge of Manhattan where the huge gray dome shone dully, like a bug's carapace. Its bloated body, the size of a tidal wave, loomed over everything and looked as if it were preparing to swallow buildings whole.
The creature's shadow spread across the surrounding neighborhood, and the air smelled of something nauseatingly metallic.
p. 204
