After a financial collapse devastates the United States, the new government imposes a tax on the nation’s most valuable resource—the children.
Surrendered at age ten—after her parents could no longer afford her exorbitant fees—Vee Delancourt has spent six hard years at the Mills, alongside her twin, Oliver. With just a year to freedom, they do what they can to stay off the Master’s radar. But when Vee discovers unspeakable things happening to the younger girls in service, she has no choice but to take a stand—a decision that lands her on the run and outside the fence for the first time since the System robbed her of her liberty.
Vee knows the Master will stop at nothing to prove he holds ultimate authority over the Surrendered. But when he makes a threat that goes beyond what even she considers possible, she accepts the aid of an unlikely group of allies. Problem is, with opposing factions gunning for the one thing that might save them all, Vee must find a way to turn oppression and desperation into hope and determination—or risk failing all the children and the brother she left behind.
This book was sent to me from Blaze Publishing
THIS REVIEW WILL BE SPOILER-FREE.
I had the pleasure of receiving this book from Blaze Publishing! It definitely took me a while to pick only because I forget about ebooks. Anyway, let's start off this review!
The first thing that I noticed while reading this book was how invested I would get with the story. Throughout the entire book, I was constantly on the edge of my seat and I couldn't get enough of this world. For me at least, it's very rare to completely enthralled with every word and every page. Case Maynard has a way with words that will have you itching for more.
Now this book is a dystopian. I have a little bit of a strong opinion on futuristic dystopians which I will not state in this review, but if you search this blog you will probably find a post written by a frustrated fifteen year old me. Anyway, whenever I read a dystopian, I usually expect to see the same trend that I see in YA today. Did I see that in The Surrendered? Yes, yes I did. In a lot of cases, this can be a bad thing if the book isn't done well however with this book it definitely wasn't. As I flipped through the pages of this book I began to notice all of the typical trends in not only the story but the world and the characters. For some odd reason, this didn't turn me off. The Surrendered contained the strong female protagonist with the Katniss like personality and the corrupted world being controlled by a horrible government. Yet I still read it, and I really enjoyed it.
This is something that I say with a lot of dystopians, but The Surrendered holds elements of both Divergent and The Hunger Games. I know, that's like the last thing you want to hear when you read a futuristic dystopian but this is still one of the most thrilling books I have read. When it comes to the world, the characters and the plot it can be a little bit generic. However, the entire structure of this book is what makes this very strong. While it is only 240 pages long, we still get a fascinating story that is well paced and at the end of the day, is just very well done.
The characters are something that I've definitely seen, Vee is a character that you've seen around. Something I would like to point out is the fact that Case Maynard did a really good job with building her characters and her world. It was very well developed, especially for a book that is 240 pages long. I have read plenty of dystopians where the book is 400+ and we would still have lack of character development, world building and overall the structure would be kind of off. The Surrendered did not suffer from any of those things, it was very refreshing to see.
One of the strongest points of this book was the writing. I believe the writing is what kept me reading. I really couldn't put my finger on it before and I still can't, but there is something about her Case Maynards word choice that really just pulls you into the story.
I believe that this book is a series? As the first book in the series, this book was very good. It sets up for an incredible story that has a lot of potential and I would really like to read the future books when the time comes.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this to any dystopian or just YA fan in general because it's a very intriguing read. It has a very thrilling storyline and if you got the chance I would urge you to pick it up and read it. I would rate this a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
I hope you enjoyed reading this review!
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Great review Faith! x
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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