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This has all the elements of being a very exciting story, but sad to say, it isn't. The last fifty pages lift it from a two star, barely, but can't save the entirety of the book.
First of all, it's simply too long for what is in here. The storyline isn't bad, but it's far too minutely descriptive and all I can think is, well, this is going to be stretched out to fill three books so, of course, it's overly descriptive. Something has to fill all those pages. Too bad it isn't the story, but street by street bicycling and walking or running. And the sights and smells over and over and over. There are some things that are described in almost the same way several times. This is unneccessary.
And while we're on the subject of unneccessary, I know that Lena is five foot, two. I got that the first time I was told and it didn't need repetition. It was not in need of repetition. Or to put it a little differently while still giving you the same information again: it didn't need repeating.
This whole story could have been tightened up and more than likely the whole proposed three installments would fit within the pages of one book.
I get it, I really do. Why write one book when you can hook readers into three? I mean, it's three sales, three times the money, so kudos to the author on that, but the story really needs to be strong enough to make readers keep coming back for more.
And, as usual, it ends on something of a cliff-hanger so, as a reader, I'm left disappointed.
However, there are things that I really liked about the story and for which I applaud Lauren Oliver and which make me think she's capable of better than what's here.
The chapter headings with quotes from The Book of SHHH, nursery rhymes, playground chants, Comprehensive Compilation of Dangerous Words and Ideas, government pamphlets, schoolbooks and others are simply brilliant and add to the story in subtle ways. Amor Deliria Nervosa sounds like what doctors might call love if they wanted to classify it as a disease. There are lots of little tidbits like this that are clever and creative and make me wish for more from this book.
I also really like that she put in that indifference, not hate, is the opposite of love. It's a thoughtful small conversation, but it is also the basis of the story. The government has decided that they prefer the people to be indifferent, uncaring, and I think that actually is rather profound.
I did like the characters. I've heard the complaint that Lena has no personality and I think that's true, but she lives in a society that having no personality is considered a good thing. No one is encouraged to be different or have interests or feel passionate about anything so the fact that she's fairly unformed makes sense for the world she lives in. When she finally makes her choices, her life opens up and she finds a strength in herself.
The character of Alex is well-drawn and his attraction to her makes sense. I liked them together.
One of the problems with the writing of the book is that the first few chapters introduce lots of characters and backstory and it's kind of a lot to slog through. And yet, even with all of that, too much isn't fully explained or developed. How did they come up with the idea that love is a disease?
The action really doesn't pick up until the final hundred pages and then there are some surprises, but by that time I was already a bit bored.
Additionally, there are some continuity errors. When things like this happen, it stops the story for me. I have to go back and reference the information. In a book that repeats itself as much as this one does, you'd think it would be easy to keep the facts straight.
For instance, Lena lives in a two-story house except that at one time she thinks that her aunt and uncle's whole apartment would fit in the living room of a house she's in. Or she's playing in the ocean with Alex and it says how her shoes are filled with water several times, but she had kicked her shoes off when she got to the beach and she grabs them up to put back on when she runs out of the water. That was within a few pages so it should have been easy to keep that straight.
The most flagrant one was the time left until Lena's cure which skips all around. When it's down to just seventeen days, her aunt says it's several weeks away. Seventeen days is two and a half weeks, not several. Small things, I know, but it interrupted the flow of a story which was already dragging and not flowing well.
I think it would have made for a much more interesting dynamic and Lena's choice would have been more dramatic had her paired boy been someone as good as or close to as good as Alex. Instead we get this short guy who is snotty (literally, he has allergies to everything, so he's full of snot), listless and unattractive to Lena. It would have added some tenson if he had been a possible choice, someone with whom she could at least be content. Not that I'm suggesting a love triangle, not at all, oh no, but I think her pair being someone less repulsive (not that short guys are repulsive, but the mucus factor...) would have made her choice more of a choice instead of making it seem to be the only possible choice.
In this world you can be executed for breaking the rules and yet, Lena does so almost every day after she meets Alex. At one point they are walking down the street together on opposite sides of the sidewalk to make it appear they aren't walking together. Um, how big exactly is this sidewalk? If I saw two people walking along side by side, I'd assume they are together, even if they are walking on opposite sides. I had to read this over because I thought it was opposite sides of the street, but nope, sidewalk in broad daylight. This made no sense to me.
Last, but not least, the motorcycle. While I do love me some hero riding in on a white horse or, in place of that, a shiny motorcycle, there needs to be at least a bit of dialogue on how this happened. How about, "Where did you get this?" shouted over the sound of the engine with, "Stole it!" as a reply. At least give me this much or earlier in the book tell me he has a motorcyle. This came out of nowhere, almost a deus ex machina or, in this case, deus ex motorcycle.
All in all, not a bad read, not the best.
Will I read the next books? *frustrated sigh* Probably.