I received this ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

Ive read this book a few times now and I still like it, I'm looking forward to reading more from this author

"The Forge School is the most prestigious arts school in the country. The secret to its success: every moment of the students' lives is televised as part of the insanely popular Forge Show, and the students' schedule includes twelve hours of induced sleep meant to enhance creativity."

Reality TV in a dystopian world, with something sinister going on during the 12 hours the students are out cold? Yes, please! Rosie Sinclair is a first year student who decides to skip her sleeping pill and go exploring after dark because she just needs a little "me" time, where the cameras aren't watching her every move. She gets embroiled in a mystery that she definitely wasn't expecting.

What a great premise! I loved the characters, or at least the kids, but enjoyed the sinister ones, as well. The story was interesting enough to keep me engrossed, and the ending set up the next book perfectly. The pacing was quick, which made this a quick, enjoyable read.

In summary, I enjoyed this dystopian YA story very much and look forward to reading the next book in the series to find out where it goes from here.

5/5 stars.

My interests have changed since I requested this book as I no longer primarily read YA. At this time, I won't be reading or reviewing this title as it does not fit my current interests or the interests of followers of my blog/Instagram. Thank you.

I liked this book. I have had this book on my tbr for years but never got around to reading it for one reason or another. I happened to notice that the audiobook was available to borrow from my library and I decided to jump in. I actually really enjoyed the book a lot until the story drew to a close. This is the first book in a trilogy but I felt like this book’s ending was more of a setup for the next installment in the series than anything else. I found this to be a quick read that was rather entertaining.

Rosie is a student at Forge School of the Arts. The prestigious school films every aspect of the students’ lives to be televised. To stay at the school you have to achieve a certain ranking and the pressure to rank higher never ends. While at the school, students are filmed for 12 hours daily and then are induced to sleep for the remaining 12 hours of the day. Rosie is suspicious of what really happens during the students’ drugged sleep and starts taking steps to find out what is really going on.

I liked the characters in this book and I was really curious about what was really happening at the school. I wanted Rosie to be successful in her quest to find the truth. It was interesting to see how the students’ dealt with being on camera at all times. The more I learned the more I wanted to know.

Emily Woo Zeller did an amazing job with the narration. I honestly doubt that I would have enjoyed the book as much as I did if I had not decided to grab the audiobook. I thought that her narration added a lot of excitement and emotion to the story and I really enjoyed the character voices that she used.

I think that a lot of readers might like this one more than I did. I found the ending to be rather weak and felt like the book fizzled out more than anything. I am sure that a lot of the questions that I still have would probably be addressed in the next two books in the trilogy but I am unsure if I will ever pick those up.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

My thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group/Roaring Brook Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

Sadly, despite the interesting cover and premise, the execution fell flat for me. I didn't like the MC Rosie who was a tad too on the TSTL side for me, the book started in a weird place and there was at least one uncomfortable spot in this book and I peeked at the start of the second book, and there seems to be a theme of unconscious teen girls having teen boys try/succeed at touching/kissing them. Each time I came across it, the boy was stopped and it was shown to be wrong, but it was rather distasteful for me to read.

The cuts in the beginning weren't very clear, it seemed that there were 50 girls in the dorm room to begin with and that 25 were cut, but there were boys who were cut too, so it's not clear if there were 100 freshmen total, boys and girls, or if there were 100 of each gender. Also, if you knew you had ten days to make an impression on viewers so they would watch you and you wouldn't be cut, would you wait until the LAST DAY to try to get their attention? The kids in the competition could SEE their scores, it's not like Rosie didn't know she was practically dead last.

Rosie's actions didn't seem to make much sense and the plot was...weak? Weird and not in a good way? From reading other reviews, it seems that this trilogy jumps off of the rails pretty early on and I don't really want to be a part of that ride, so I am DNFing it at 38% in the first book.

That's not to say that other readers wouldn't really enjoy this book and trilogy, just that it didn't work for me personally. I am glad that I have had exposure to this book/trilogy/author, so I can suggest it to readers who come to our store asking about it. I wouldn't not recommend it as it wasn't terrible, just not for me.

2, it isn't for me but it may be for you, stars.

DNF

The circumstances of this dystopia really make little sense, nor did I connect to the cast of characters. The whole thing seems absurd, especially that anyone would choose to watch this massively boring show.

DNF @92%

Book source ~ NetGalley

Rosie Sinclair is competing with 99 other students in her grade to stay at Forge School - a prestigious school that is also a popular reality tv show. But things aren’t all that they seem and Rosie is determined to find out what evil lurks below the surface.

First off, these students are supposed to take a sleeping pill so they stay asleep for 8 hrs a night. So, we have drugging the students. Check. When Rosie fakes taking her pill and stays awake she discovers that some students are being taken from their dorm room and given an IV with who knows what in it. Experimentation? Check. The Dean is well-respected but Rosie sees something else in him. Mild-mannered evil genius? Check.

I made it to 92% of this book and then just gave up. Why? Because I was pissed at myself for even reading that far. Why did I subject myself to mediocre writing and a fucking twat as a main character? Because I’m a fucking dumbass. Not only that, all the characters are two-dimensional clichéness and the plot is so convoluted as to be indecipherable. Did I mention Rosie is a twat? Not to mention the “romance” between her and the kitchen guy (who is so memorable I can’t even think of his name) was forced and unnatural. I stopped reading and pretended Rosie died in the end. Now I’m partly satisfied.

Overall a cool concept, but the questions it poses were obviously dragged on longer than they should have been in order to fill out a trilogy, and the ending was a confusing, jumbled mess. The story was lacking in action. I would have appreciated more fleshing out in regards to the stepfather and Rosie's female friends.

Although I am far from being a young adult I usually can get into a young adult story and fully enjoy myself but this was clearly not one of those books that was meant for me. When I read the synopsis I was like oh hell yeah! It sounded so good but I grew bored very fast and had a hard time caring about any of it. I did complete it though and it picked up somewhat but that ending? What the heck???

I grabbed a copy of this at ALA when I met the author, and wanted to badly to love it! The progression was slow, though, and I just wanted to get in to the story and the mysteries. I pushed on, and did end up enjoying what I read. I would have loved more worldbuilding, though. How did this world get to this point? What's the backstory? How did Rosie end up where she did? The romance was sweet, but that wasn't enough to make me really love the story.

I have tried to read this book several times and honestly just get bored. The writing doesn't grab me and the plot seems really contrived. Sad as the blurb held such promise. DNF at 25%

Thank You for the opportunity to review this book. Sorry, I attempted to read this book. However, I couldn't get in to it. So, I was unable to finish reading and reviewing it.

This one just doesn't fit my reading taste any more and I am sure I won't pick it up to read. Sorry I never got around to it.

I will not be rating or reviewing this book since I did not finish it. The book was just not working for me. Thank you for your consideration.

I truly enjoy this book, it kept me reading till the end. I would certainly be reading more of this amazing author. I suggest you read it, you will certainly won’t be disappointed. I read the summary and got very interested. Thank you for the opportunity I will look forward for more from this author.

Sorry, requested but did not find the time to review.

*I never got around to reading and reviewing this book. I may do so in the future*

this was a great first book in the series! i enjoyed it very much! i can't wait for the third one, THE KEEP OF AGES.

The idea behind this book was smart, but it left me feeling like I could have spent time reading something a bit more put together.

This book reminded me a little of Amy Tintera's Reboot duology and a little bit like The Hunger Games, but only in small ways. The rest was wholly original. I love stories that you know something bad is going on and there's this one character that is out to find out what that is. It makes for compulsory reading! I thought the writing itself was very good and I would definitely read other books by this author.