King Arthur Movie Tristan

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

title: America Pacifica

author: Anna North

genre: dystopian fiction

pages: 297

published: May 18, 2011

source: ARC for review from Amazon Vine

first line: The trouble started when the woman with the shaking hands came to the apartment.

rated: 3 1/2 out of 5








I was really eager to read America Pacifica since I'm a fan of science fiction and dystopian stories, but don't often read types of books.


This book starts off with 18 year old Darcy and her mom, Sarah, living in a run down apartment type complex on an island called America Pacifica. The story takes place after the second Ice Age.

Darcy's mom was one of the first to settle on America Pacifica when everyone had to evacuate the mainland. Darcy has plenty of questions for her mom about life on the mainland, but Sarah is always vague and evasive when it comes to speaking about life before America Pacifica.




The island is run by someone named Tyson, who ensures that the rich are very well off and the poor, like Darcy and Sarah, struggle to survive.
Darcy and her mom live in the grimy, seedy part of the island. Darcy works at a building for senior citizens, serving food. Her mother works doing backbreaking labor as a pearl diver.


Darcy and her mom have awful living conditions and often go hungry. They share their bathroom with the other tenants and their building is rundown. Some of the tenants do 'solvent', a type of drug, which is similar to crack. Most of their food consists of jelly fish seasoned and flavored to resemble something else, like Salisbury steak or goat meat. The two are very close and almost live in their own little world sheltered from outsiders.





When Darcy's mother doesn't return home from her job one night, Darcy fears the worse. She goes on a search to find her mom and ends up injured, with her life endangered and discovering some secrets about the island as well as her own mother.



As she tries to get closer to the truth, Darcy meets several people, some of whom knew her mother personally. She begins to put pieces of the puzzle together.




Author Anna North vividly describes the island of America Pacifica and as I read, I really got the sense of how grimy and depressing it was. I do wish some of her descriptions were a bit more detailed, sometimes I felt lost as to what certain things were. Many objects on the island such as paper and clothing are made from something called 'Seaboard', yet this material was never fully explained, so I just assumed it was made from seaweed or sand.


Some of the descriptions in the story were very crude, especially when it came to sexual organs. I just thought I'd mention that, I do know some readers would be put off by that. It didn't bother me, it just added to the grittiness of the story.





I liked Darcy's character, and I instantly panicked when her mother didn't return from work. Once Darcy went deeper into the slums of America Pacifica, I felt for her character even more as she tried to find her mothers whereabouts.


Sarah herself makes her appearance in the first few pages of the story, so most of what the reader knows about her is through Darcy's memories and from what the other characters recall about her. As you read you really get a feel of the bond they shared.



The writing was well done and as I said, I really got a feel of this Dystopian world and its inhabitants. The characters were also well written and the plot was interesting.


I should also say, the ending is left wide open. There was really no satisfying conclusion, so I'm assuming there will be a sequel.




All in all, I enjoyed America Pacifica and can see this being the start of new series.

The night was hardening around its core. The air was cooler-sweat dried on her skin and stuck there, spit thick and itchy. The wind shifted and blew the smoke in from Detroitville. Below that was the ominous smell of the coming rain.


p.114