60/100 or 3.0 stars

I was excited to try this based on the synopsis, as I am a big fan of dystopian stories. I realized early on that this might not be the book for me, as the side characters felt one-dimensional and were hard to get invested with any character other than the two main characters we follow (I knoe Joel is part of the main characters, but he doesn't really have much to him). I really tried to make it as far as I could through this novel. I was able to get to the 31% point before realizing I couldn't continue. I did not want to spite read the rest of the story and give this a bad rating when I knew prior to finishing the book that it wasn't working for me.

The consept of the story is great, but the execution was not there for me, unfortunately.

Calm is an interesting dystopian idea where society is drugged to keep them emotionally balanced. The story follows two separate stories of characters who are resisting being "calmed" and how they managed to escape. This is a great story for any fans of YA dystopian series!

The first few chapters had me hooked. I love a good dystopian novel. However, wished there was more interaction between the characters we follow, and the ending was not the best.

3.5 rounded up

First of all, I absolutely love the cover. I totally judged the book by it, and I think it represents the story well. 3.5 stars

What I liked:
- I'm not sure how to describe the writing other than effective. There's nothing super distinctive about the style but somehow the understated descriptions still made me have a lot of strong emotional reactions.
- This is less of a traditional dystopia series starter and more of an on-the-run adventure. Not fully what I expected.
- Ellen and everything around her.
- Everyone knows that they drug the water. I feel like in dystopias, it's normally a surprise and I thought it was so interesting

What I didn't like:
- The side characters are all much more memorable than Owyn and Tiegan. Owyn is getting there, but the focus on his race was a little messily integrated. I think it should've been a stronger plot point in general.
- The worldbuilding isn't super creative or memorable.
- There's no ending. There was all this running, but the most compelling emotional scenes happen earlier so there's no tension release.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it had that dystopian thriller element that I was looking for and enjoyed how everything flowed well overall. The concept was strong and enjoyed the overall feel of this book. The characters were everything that I wanted and the use of emotions worked overall. Susan Baker has a strong writing style and left me wanting to read more in this world and from Susan Baker.