Another YA thriller mystery has an interesting setting (cruise ship). While the plot was interesting, the multi-POV made the book drag a bit for me. Not so much because it was more than one but each sounded the same and didn't really have that compelling of a stake/individual narrative.

I can’t believe this is a debut novel, it’s so good! The suspense is amazing with the rotating POVs leaving you hanging after each chapter and the storyline was so unique and interesting. This book definitely gave me the same vibes as The Hunger Games, which was the perfect mix of nostalgia and the excitement of a new storyline in that type of world! The characters were great and I loved how we got a villain POV with Hadley. The descriptions of the ship and the social divides, politics, and acts of the rebellion were amazing and really helped readers to picture the way people functioned on the ship. Definitely recommend picking this one up!

The premise of The Stranded seemed so appealing, but unfortunately, it was underwhelming.

Apocalyptic war and a deadly virus forced passengers on board the Arcadia to reside on the former luxury cruise liner for decades. Now, the ship floats off the coast of the Federated States, and no one is allowed to disembark without special permission for fear of spreading the long-dormant virus. Wealthy passengers reside on the upper decks, while the impoverished lives on the lower levels.

Esther is a training medic, studying hard so she can try to get off the ship and secure a job on land.

Nic is deep into planning a rebellion.

Hadley is the commander, in charge of keeping order on the ship, and will do so at any cost.

This YA thriller is fast-paced and has multiple POVs.

I thought I would enjoy it more than I did. It lacks character development. Many of the characters were merely caricatures of good versus evil. Especially Hadley. He’s identical to every villain in a poorly acted budget action film.

I’m not sure why I thought the virus would take up more pages, but alas, it was only mentioned a few times. Maybe it will play a larger role in the next instalment, but I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series.

The last 80 pages were top-tier action, but again, not enough to motivate me to stick with the series.

Some YA books can be enjoyed by all ages, but I’d only recommend this to those that really adore YA. It reads on the younger side, even though it has some darker content.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for providing an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

https://booksandwheels.com

Esther is a med-student, but instead of being at university or a hospital, her classes are on the ship she and her family live on---the same ship she’s lived her whole life on. Nik has also spent his full life on this ship, but he and his family are on the side of the rebels, the group planning to take the ship ashore and liberate all of the passengers. After the war, the ship has remained off the coast of the Federated States, but now Esther and Nik are forced to work together since Esther’s role as a do-gooder are going to try and do some good for the other side. A YA novel set in a dystopian future, the book moves fast, not always clear on why everyone has been stranded out to sea (other than perhaps a vague political threat). At times, a little difficult to follow just due to the hectic running around and the chaos of the scenes. Definitely held my interest, so I will likely read the second book, coming out next year.

Special Note: Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a YA Snowpiercer on a cruise ship. I don't now...I've tried to read it twice now, and each time can't seem to get invested in the characters or the plot. The worldbuilding feels off to me and I can't quite wrap my head around what and why anything is happening.

Sorry to say this isn't for me.

I went into this book based solely on what the cover looked like. I envisioned a spooky, haunted cruise ship and that is not at all what this book is about. The story is set in the future after a pandemic. Families who were already on a luxury cruise ship were awarded the chance to stay in their purchased rooms and live out their lives safe and away from the sickness on land. After 40 years at sea, the refugees on the ship are becoming restless and anxiously awaiting their turn to return to land. Gangs run the bottom levels of the ship, drones are constantly monitoring peoples' actions, and one wrong move could mean death. When a certain group of people attempt a mutiny, it brings disastrous consequences to everyone on board.

I really wanted to like this book, but it took me FOREVER to read and I was so glad when it was over. The chapters were written from multiple POVs and it was very hard to keep the characters straight. Nothing really happened for the majority of the story, and by the time something did happen I was too confused to care. This just wasn't for me!

⭐️💫 I loved the cover. I loved the synopsis. I just really didn’t love the book.

I was really looking forward to this one, but I was disappointed. A YA dystopian book set on a ship at anchor where no one can leave to prevent a virus, a rebel group is secretly operating to take over. I think it’s a great idea for a book, but the story never came together for me. I didn’t think that the backstory was explained well and I was left confused.

Themes: 🚢🦠

My thoughts: 🤔🫡🥱😞

@netgalley
#netgalley
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I thought the beginning of the book was just a lot of information and could be toned down but as I got into the story I couldn’t put it down and the. It ends, looking forward to a possible series! Very interesting concept! Worth a read!

The Stranded is going to be the next big hunger games. The story takes place on the Arcadia, a ship outside of the Federated States. Generations have lived on this ship because Europe is a wasteland and the Federated states are worried about a virus that hasn’t been seen in recent history.

Buckle up, it’s a doozy!

This was a terrific debut! This reminds me of the covid pandemic when many cruise ships were quarantined. In this story, the Arcadia is a luxury cruise ship which became a refuge for those fleeing after the virus in Europe. The Arcadia was not allowed to land anywhere for over 40 years. The main characters were May, who was deeply involved in the rebellion plans, and Esther, her older sister, who wanted to be a doctor. Also, Nik who was part of the rebellion and May’s friend and Alex, Esther’s friend. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to find out how the rebellion would progress and what part the four main characters would play.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Welcome to the Arcadia

The Arcadia was once a luxury cruise ship but now serves as *home*,a refugee camp for those who were driven from Europe after war. The Arcadia floats in the waters off the coast of what is known as the "Federated States", a fractured part of the United States. For forty years people have lived on the Arcadia. They cannot go on land, they are separated by the haves, the have nots, and gangs. Where you live on the ship tells your story.

Ester is sixteen years old and training to be a medic. This means that she will one day be able to work and live on land. When all you know is living on the Arcadia, living on land, sounds like a dream.

Nik is sixteen years old and trying to help the rebellion.

Hadley is the villain. He is also the commander on the Arcadia.

Ester, Nik and Hadley have their own POVs in this dystopian, trapped on a ship, novel. I found this story to be enjoyable and entertaining. There is tension, the rebellion and the characters themselves which kept me engaged and turning the pages.

What would it be like to grow up on a ship? To never have the ground beneath your feet, to feel grass, or see animals? What would it be like to be stuck and trapped?

This book had me thinking of many things while reading it. The descriptions of where people resided with the haves and the have nots reminded me of the Titanic with the poor staying below deck. The book also reminded me of the beginning of the titanic and people on cruise ships not being able to make port.

I also enjoyed the beginning of the chapters which told how many days on ship, etc. I thought that was very nicely done.

Entertaining and enjoyable.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a dystopian YA novel, and while it took me a little bit to get into, the second half really ramped up, it got SO intense, and then you realize at the end that this is not a standalone novel 😂. THERE WILL BE MORE. Which is fine, I just wasn’t expecting it.

I’ve never been on a cruise, so I had a hard time grasping the massive size of this ship that this story was taking place on, with its separate communities and the fact that someone could throw a grenade in one area and other areas of the ship could not be impacted at all.

I was a little confused on some of the backstory for how all these people ended up on the ship, and what was going on in the surrounding land areas, but I got enough of it for the story to move along. This book was described as Snowpiercer meets The Hunger Games, and I did catch some of those dark areas that were in line with The Hunger Games Trilogy, while fitting into their own storyline.

This novel is told from three different points of view, and I thought the author did a good job at letting us into three VERY different characters. I thought getting the POV of the villain was an interesting take.

Overall, the pacing and writing were good, well-written characters, and the story was interesting. If you like dystopian YA, I recommend checking this out!

This book is out January 3, 2023. 📚

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The writing was excellent (you would never know this is a debut novel). I can't imagine being stranded on a cruise ship my whole life and the author really brings this world to life. The action is non-stop and starts right from the beginning. If you enjoy dystopian books you definitely need to pick this one up!

I must admit, I would never have thought of basing a dystopian YA book on a cruse ship. The premise made me think of Lord of the Flies- people stranded, but in this case unable to make landfall It is action packed and I enjoyed it. Ester and Nik are great characters.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

I was kind of excited to see a YA dystopia pop on NetGalley because I thought that trend was, like, super dead—although I think I myself had drifted away from it somewhere towards the middle. There’s a video essay by Sarah Z about the rise and fall of YA dystopia which, I think (it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so apologies if I’m mis-summarising this), reaches the conclusion that the genre keeled over, partly due to over-saturation and the natural ebb and flow of the market, but also because it stopped making any fucking sense. As in, instead of, you know, instead of exploring a theoretically plausible dystopian settings things had degenerated into a kind of “what if teenagers had to [something impractically unpleasant]”, for which I think Divergent is something of the poster child. Anyway, where I’m going with that tangent, is that I think what really struck me about The Stranded is that it feels like a very, very believable dystopia.

The premise is a mysterious, and an ensuing war, has basically wiped out most of Europe. America, meanwhile, has fractured, with the Federated States being the established power, a wall dividing it from whatever lies on the other side. Our teenage heroine is one of the stranded, a descendent of one of the original travellers who took refuge on the cruise ship Arcadia when the virus broke out and—despite having had no incidents of the virus for literally decades—are still being denied entry to the Federated States. That this setting is clearly derived from, err, shit that was going on in the world a few years ago (with Trump in the White House and stories of stranded cruise ships, like the Diamond Princess or the Zaandam getting some media attention during the pandemic) is probably what renders The Stranded such an effective dystopia (compared to, y’know, ‘what if teenagers were only allowed one personality trait’) but I could also see—given how close we still are to living in our dystopia—a certain … opportunism, perhaps, that may to some people feel slightly distasteful.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t personally feel that way. I think that, while the setting is clearly influenced by the pandemic and its broader political context, the book was also at pains to establish differences between the real past and the fictional present: the virus, for example, originates in Europe (not Asia) and then there’s the war that has turned the continent into a wasteland, and while there’s a wall down the middle of the US now, the details of how and why it came about are left vague. Anyway, YMMV is what I’m saying.

The book is multi-viewpoint, but I’d personally say the main protagonist is Esther. Raised on the Arcadia, she is currently training to be a doctor as part of a programme that is supposed to get top candidates in highly skilled profession (like doctors and military officers) admittance to the Federated States. The Arcadia is currently a sort of panopticon, run under a martial law imposed by officers from the Federated States, ostensibly to protect citizens from the gangs that previously threatened the ship, but mostly about enforcing control. When Esther, previously unassuming and diligent, is present at an illegal leaflet drop she gets pulled into a rebellion that has brewing for generations. The other POV characters are Nik, one of the rebels, who is in love with Esther’s sister, and Hadley, the sadistic representative of the Federated States who has been assigned to the Arcadia as punishment for a previous indiscretion.

Of the three POVs, I found Esther the most compelling, perhaps because she had the most significant emotional journey to undertake. Nik felt a bit more utilitarian, his personality slightly subsumed by his narrative function, which was allowing the reader to see what was going on with the rebels. And Hadley … well. I honestly feel a bit ambiguous about villain POVs, especially if they become glamorised, but there’s no danger of that with Hadley. He’s legitimately terrifying—this mixture of entitlement and grievance that renders him ruthless, unpredictable, and absolutely irredeemable. I confess to being slightly fascinated by his perspective, not because there was anything particularly special about him as a person (his villainy is always banal, stemming from unchecked power and contempt) but because we get to understand his goals, see his perspective, even his vulnerability, and the forces he himself is in conflict with (he is as desperate to get off the Arcadia as the citizens) and he is still not only monstrous but monstrously uncool. That feels like quite an accomplishment.

The Stranded, in general, pulls no punches. Some pretty terrible shit and dramatic shit goes down over the course of the book. And, given the high stakes and escalating tension, I’m somewhat surprised by some of the more negative reviews that found the book slow. For me, it had a thriller-like compulsiveness that kept me tearing through the pages. In fact, the book was so relentlessly plot-driven that I felt some of its character moments got a little lost in the action—I think I felt more emotional connection between Esther and the bloke who servers her coffee in the opening chapter than I did between any of the romantic couples. Basically, The Stranded asks us to take a lot of pre-existing relationships for granted—especially between siblings and between lovers—before the story kicks off and doesn’t always do the best job of allowing us to invest. For example, Esther’s boyfriend Alex is clearly made of red flags from top-to-toe but the book doesn’t give us time to believe in him as someone who is NOT made of red flags from top-to-toe which makes Esther’s commitment to him and everyone else’s willingness to just trust him a bit frustrating. On the other hand, I really appreciated the way The Stranded allowed its characters to behave non-heroically. A grieving Nik says some truly terrible things to Esther. And Esther herself, while she comes through in the end, is given space to be scared and overwhelmed, and make bad decisions—as, I think, most people would in the same position.

In any case, I enjoyed The Stranded a lot, finding it both gripping and oddly grounded for a YA dystopia (it even makes a degree of sense why the rebellion is resting on the shoulders of young people instead of, y’know, actual adults). While it faltered occasionally in its characterisation, it shines it terms of its plotting, its setting and its risk-taking. If nothing else, book 1 ends in a wildly different place to where it began, which gives me hope for book 2 maintaining its momentum and its breakneck pace.

Entertaining, and fun thrill ride aboard The Stranded. Similar feeling to Snowpiercer, however this book had more turns and rebellion complexes.

I had some trouble getting into this book. It hit a little too close to reality with the Pandemic issues.. But by the later half of the book I was hooked. Quite action packed. Lost a few characters that I did not expect but that is a good thing. Loved it.

This book has a fantastic eye-catching cover. When I read the blurb I was expecting something darker and deeper but the sixteen year old characters just weren't believable to me. The action scenes didn't grip me at all, I think bc the world/character building was lacking. I just didn't feel the menace I was supposed to from a police force called "coalies." Instead I mostly felt frustration at the stupid characters. I loved the premise but I think I'm not the right audience for this. I will abstain from sharing this poor review beyond what is necessary.

I think this book signals the end up my young adult dystopian days. If this book had come out when I was deep into my love for all things Hunger Games and Divergent, I would have quickly become obsessed. Now? I realize this genre of book is no longer my cup of tea.
Don't get me wrong! I know this book is a good book and many will love it, even if I didn't. I can see that it is well written, it has drama and action and evil government and rebellion and social issues. I can see that the different characters are well crafted and add depth to the overall story. I quite enjoyed being able to read from Hadley, Nik, and Esther's point-of-view. I can definitely see many becoming obsessed with this book.
All that being said, I can tell this book is a debut book, but that's not a bad thing.

Ok this is definitely not a Hunger Games kind of book - there's no competition. This is a group of people stuck on a ship in an apocalyptical world, where a new "government" is set up to control the population.

We don't get a big view or story about the outside world, but what we do know, is that after some chemical virus was dropped on parts of Europe during a war, people who were trying to escape, got stuck on a big cruise ship on the waters of Federal Nations. The Federal Nations do not want to take on the responsibility of taking care of these people, or get infected with the possible virus that these people carry, so these ships are kind of stuck in this limbo.

The people make though, and their lives go on. New kids are born, are taught and trained in hopes to be accepted as workers for the Federal Nations. However, like in any real world, there are micro groups that are trying to abuse and use the system to better their own lives, as well as rebellion groups that want to get off.

Everything crashes together, when the girl gets pulled into the wrong side of the "law", and finally sees the ship and its future for what it is. Now, it is a ticking clock to save everyone and herself.

It was an intense read, and quite fun. There's a lot of action, friendships, betrayals and even romance. The ending was a cliffhanger, so looking forward to the next installment of this story.