DNF.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. I'd been hearing about it on Twitter, so I snapped it up when my NetGalley request was approved. I will give the author all due credit when it comes to world-building. The couple of chapters I read reminded me a bit of 1984, a bit of The Handmaid's Tale, and even a dash of Fahrenheit 451, with her very well rendered depictions of an all-controlling government.

But-

The chapters I read were a slog to get through. The author did not know when to pull back, when to not write so darn much about everything, and when to let the reader pick up nuances about this world and not explain each and every thing. It just went on and on, nothing happening for paragraphs, and finally I'd had enough. There might be a good story here, but it's buried under too much exposition.

I thought this was kinda be a bad or shittier Matched. Like, the love aspect is there in the book and I didn't really believe it but it was nothing like Matched at all. When I first read Matched, it was a favorite. I devoured the books but it hasn't really stood the test of time. I'm sure a lot of us can relate to that. I don't know why I did think it was gonna be like Matched by Ally Condie, but I'm glad it wasn't. While it has some similar aspects such as "The Board" in the book can be related to "the officials" in Matched, and there are similarities, in this book it feels more developed. It feels a bit more organic, and some of the things honestly reminded me about The Handmaid's Tale (obs! not the book but the series). There are some problematic things in the book I really didn't get such as the love aspect which just left me ???? okay ??? but I'm not gonna go into spoilers.

One thing that also slightly bothered me was information dumps. There was a lot of them, and they didn't really seem to be in the right place most of the time even though I get WHY they were there.

I think I'd read this book again or definitely check out the author with more books.