This was really not my cup of tea. I liked the premise but the story fell flat. I enjoyed the writing, however!

I can really relate to the message this book is trying to convey. The only issue I had with it was that the characters were very challenging to connect with. Good read though.

Rating: 4/5

Genre: YA Dystopian

Recommended Age: 14+ (death, violence, language)

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Someone must die before another can be born... As sea levels rise and livable landmasses shrink, the Reorganized United States of America has instituted population control measures to ensure there are sufficient resources and food to sustain the growing population. Birth authorization must be paid for and obtained prior to having a child. Someone must die before another can be born, keeping the country in a population neutral position at what experts consider to be the optimal population. The new laws are enforced by a ruthless government organization known as Pop Con, responsible for terminating any children resulting from unauthorized births, and any illegals who manage to survive past their second birthday, at which point they are designated a national security threat and given the name Slip. But what if one child slipped through the cracks? What if someone knew all the loopholes and how to exploit them? Would it change anything? Would the delicate resource balance be thrown into a tailspin, threatening the lives of everyone? And how far would the government go to find and terminate the Slip? In a gripping story of a family torn apart by a single choice, Slip is a reminder of the sanctity of a single life and the value of the lives we so often take for granted. - Amazon.com

I love dystopians. If I could I would make dystopians required reading material for everyone. But in all seriousness to this review, I thought this book was a great young dystopian read. It incorporated a lot of sci-fi books for the futuristic elements and many other classic elements from other dystopian books. I loved that about the book and I also thought that the main characters were all very well developed and the writing was very clear and easy to follow along with. I thought the plot was very intriguing as well.

However, there were some issues I found with the book. For me the conclusion was not satisfying but it does make me want to read more eventually. Some of the side characters in the book felt a little underdeveloped and the world building wasn't that strong. I also felt that the way the book is wrote can be confusing for some people, but it wasn't a problem for me.

Verdict: A really good dystopian without any confusing terms or themes and, in my opinion, would be a good starter dystopian for any young adult who wishes to read one. I suggest getting the triology though because the ending is frustrating, but I can see where it would make you want to read more.

Right, this book is a dystopian novel which is one of my all-time favorite genres so I couldn't wait to get into Slip and the other 2 books I also requested in this series. Slip is set in the futuristic United States of America now called RUSA, with human resources falling with government introduced the death match. The deathmatch is basically for a new child to be born someone has to die and they people are matched up. To enforce this law, a new government agency called Population Control (Pop Con) was created to round up any UnBees (unregistered children under the age of 2) and Slips (unregistered children over the age of 2)and their parents and terminate them.

So while the premise of this novel implies many things, it is mainly a story about a wrecked family. Michael Kelly is the head of Population Control but he has a secret: his son, Benson is actually a Slip. He's been raised separate from his legal brother, Harrison, and neither boy knows about the other. Michael does everything he can to protect Benson, but he knows time is running out. Before long, he must send Benson out on his own or risk him getting caught and killed. This story is told in sections the first being Benson's point of view in his early childhood and getting to know him and the society he lives in.

I loved Michael Kelly as he is torn between his job and his family. There are so many great things to look about Slip but my personal favorites were the romance between Benson and Lucy as they are so cute together, but also very real and relatable, too. I also loved the mixed media aspects with the articles at the beginning and end of each chapter to provide more background on the society without an info dump.

The only thing that I found lacking was the character development of two very important characters: Michael Kelly and Harrison Kelly. It was really hard to like Harrison, although I wanted to. Michael Kelly was just plain elusive at times. I was glad we get a view of him from Benson in the beginning of the book, which really helped that along. I'm hoping we get more in the sequel. While this didn't take away any enjoyment from the novel I am hoping we will get more character development for Harrison and Michael in the sequel.

I hadn’t read anything by David Estes in quite a while, and when I saw this series on NetGalley, I thought, well, time to address this state of affairs. I shall also confess that nowadays, I do have a bit of a love-hate relationship with YA dystopias in general, for various reasons, and I was glad that this book, while it is a bit predictable and uses expected tropes, avoids what are the usual pitfalls of the genre for me.

The main characters in general were likeable. Benson is a good mix of resourcefulness, emotions and inner strength. Luce is the obvious ‘love interest’, but without falling in his arms, and with a past that makes it possible (while awful for her) to develop this relationship more slowly and believably than what usually happens in YA novels; she’s also resourceful, daring, and doesn’t hesitate to stand by her friends (well, OK, I guess her decision to face danger with Benson who lied to her was kind of stupid, but…). Michael Kelly as well is an interesting man, torn between his job and his mission of killing unauthorised babies and children, and his desire to protect his son. I didn’t care much for Harrison, though, perhaps because of his ‘perfect athlete and student’ record, and I thought that his mid-book decision came a little out of nowhere, considering he wasn’t seen pondering much about it (and his feelings) before. And I’m on the fence about the Destroyer, in his case I believe I -would- have want to see more of him before he became a Hunter, for his evolution into a psychopath to be better pitched against him as a child (in a way, I love to hate him for his appalling personality, but he’s too one-sided as a villain).

The world in which these characters evolve was also better rounded up than usual in dystopian YA novels (where I often get the feeling of a ‘pocket world’, totally isolated from the rest of Earth, which always makes me wonder where are the other countries and why they’re not poking their noses in). The population control method in those new USA is harsh, however the situation that led to it makes sense: climatic change, rising water levels, drowned coasts, less resources left to feed all the people, and it is logical to expect that the rest of the world has met a similar fate, hence if everybody stays in their corner and develop their own policies, it’s not unbelievable. This world is all the more creepy because it’s not such an impossible future, all in all.

Minor pet peeve: I really have a hard time with the name ‘Pop Con’, that just looks so much like ‘pop corn’ to me. XD (But I do see the naming convention roots à la 1984.)

I found the beginning a little slow, possibly because it devoted quite a few chapters to a part of Benson’s life that I felt I didn’t need so many details about—the story becomes more interesting after the boy grows up and we meet his friends. After that were more action scenes, especially once ‘the chase’ gets into motion (that’s no spoiler, of course at some point people would realise who the Slip is!). There was a bit of a plot hole/flimsy explanation, though, regarding the Wire/Jumpers/Lifers connection; it would’ve demanded some more preparation to be more logical, I think.

Conclusion: 3.5, not perfect but definitely enjoyable, especially its second half.

I admit I have been trying to avoid the whole dystopian genre this year, mostly because in general they seem to have lost their originality and ‘spark’ for me. The blurb of Slip triggered something though and now I’ve read the story I still think the idea behind this story is very interesting. I’m not sure if I can call it original, but this alternative world seems to be well developed and the ‘new’ government and their methods to control without doubt controversial. I did have some difficulties adapting to the somewhat childish tone of the writing style; especially in the first bit of the story when the main character is younger. Things did improve later on, although I felt the tone was slightly off throughout the story. The writing style is quite fast to read though and I liked how this alternate world had its own vocabulary for things. The pace did slow a bit due to the many different storylines and characters making their appearance during the story. I actually found myself to be a bit confused about where everybody fit at points, although that feeling mostly went away in the second half of Slip. Another bonus: there is only limited romance involved! True, there is a slight hint of a love triangle as well, but in this first book those with love triangle allergies (like me) are still safe. All in all it wasn’t a bad read and dystopia fans will probably enjoy this one quite a lot.

Slip: A SciFi Dystopian Thriller (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) Kindle Edition
by David Estes 

I received a complimentary copy for review purposes from NetGalley
Climate change has caught up with the USA, in a very hard way. Coastal cities are gone, or rather Wyoming has a rather nice coastal view and Lady Liberty looks a little like she did in the Original Planet of the Apes. The horrors that occurred as and after the water overtook the lower lying land are still scars on the RUSA. The climate refugee camps and food shortages. So the politician and the buerocrats and the statiticians all get together to create a one life for one death population plan in their now 42 states. In order to have a child, a couple must pay a fee and receive a Death Match, someone whose death will allow them to have a new life. Occassionally, deaths fall through. Miracles and Science and so on keep a guaranteed Death out of equation leaving an UnBee, an Unauthorized Being who must be destroyed before it lives 24 months and becomes a Slip, and all slips and those who help them must be Hunted and killed.
The Boy had no name, and never left his house until the night his father forced him to. And that night he became Benson Meck, the oldest slip. He didn't even know what a slip was.
This story is for boys what the Hunger Games were for girls. A warning of their possible future, a promise that we will do what we can to protect them and promise they can survive, that they are strong enough.
It is also very creepy. Slips have been assigned as the OTHER, the thing that society can hate en masse for taking valuable resources instead of working on other solutions The exploration of that very problem, one that haunts the minds of many of our country's people now in the form of Refugees and Unauthorized Aliens, is extremely well explored with both Benson and Harrison Kelly, the son of the Head of Population Control. They both discover that perhaps there is no other, that maybe there is always room for one more and that maybe simple, draconian solutions are never the answer.
Mr. Estes has built a world not too different from our gadget obsessed one, so not only are we familiar and not caught up in the gee-whiz isn't that cool factor of some speculative stories, but we are warned how close this possible future is. There is a definite wealth gap and very few middle class seemed to have survived.
The writing follows Boy along, the syntax and sentences and vocab matching him as he ages and as he becomes Benson.
The only character that I found a tad over the top was bully-turned-cyborg the Destroyer. His psychosis flips on too fast. I would have preferred that be drawn out a little.
An excellent start at a climate change Dystopia trilogy.

And for the nerds who keep irrelevant facts in their brain, the population number of 504,000,000, while nearly identical to the Georgia Guidestones ideal number, it was a coincidence. I asked

5 stars out of 5
Book Nerd approved

https://www.amazon.com/Slip-SciFi-Dystopian-Thriller-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00Q7P21ZE/

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. Thank you to the author, David Estes, and the publisher, Createspace, for this opportunity.

This is the first instalment in a science fiction trilogy, set in the dystopian, fictional future of our own world. Rising sea levels and diminished resources means the human species is under threat of extinction. The only way to save the entire human race is to sacrifice a few. The ruthless government organisation, known as Pop Con, have theorised that for our species to continue to thrive our numbers must be capped. For one to be born, another must die. Any born outside of this algorithm are labelled as illegal 'Slips', and all these slips must be neutralised.

The entire story is gathered from multiple perspectives and resources. Differing ages, demographics and 'sides' in this war on birth are given a voice, and together they work together to pull the story together as a cohesive whole. Public newsletters and articles, and comments in reference to these, make up the rest of the reader's knowledge.

The story behind this novel was a fascinating one, and what drew me in from the synopsis. For me, however, little happened to propel the plot forward apart from what evidence the reader initially gathers in the first third of the story. This was quite an action-dominated story, which was dually exciting and dull, for someone who prefers more character-focused narratives. Not a bad book, by any means, and with an intriguing concept behind it, but this was just not the book for me.

As you know I am now your biggest fan/cheerleader to get the word out about these books! Greatest series read I have had in such a long time, I loved the books and hope to work with you again and get the word out about any books written by you in the future!

This book. I cannot even fully process my thoughts and emotions.

Sea levels have risen and land masses in the USA have shrunk. Now known as the RUSA (Reorganized USA) has instituted population control, someone must die in order for another can be born which means couples must get authorization in order to have children. Anyone who has children illegally will be terminated including that child.

This book should have so much more publicity and praise. I could not put the book down, I had to keep reading. I became emotionally attached and loved all the action that the book provides. I cannot wait to read the next installment in the trilogy.

If you haven't checked this book out yet, I highly recommend it. Thank you netgalley and the publishers for my copy in exchange for an honest review.