Juliette can kill with nothing more than a touch. She does not see her ability as a gift, but rather as the curse that sent her into the asylum. She spends her days locked up with nothing but her dreams of a bird and the view outside her small window. After 264 days, Juliette loses hope that she will ever see the outside world again. Just as she starts to truly doubt her sanity, the asylum door opens and a young man is thrust into her world. A blast from the past, the young man starts to remind her of who she really is. Betrayal after betrayal leads Juliette out of the asylum into the hands of Aaron Warner, a military leader in the Reestablishment, a radical faction seeking power. He wants to use her as a weapon against anyone who stands against the Reestablishment and their new order. Warner’s determination to use her sends her looking for who she can trust, who she wants to be, and what she can truly do.
This book is everywhere, so I finally decided to give it a shot. To be honest, I spent most of the book underwhelmed. While I enjoyed it, I found it to be pretty typical YA dystopian and very little out of the ordinary. There were typical tropes and characters, which again, I enjoyed, but didn’t find surprising. The writing style was the first part of the book that started to capture my attention. I found myself more and more interested in Juliette, because I could see the different levels of her thoughts. I could see not only what she was actually thinking, but also the thoughts she tried to hide from herself, and all the things she wanted to say, but couldn’t. It made Juliette much more understandable and relatable. It also added a great deal to the tension throughout the book.
Around the middle of the book, the character development picked up steam and the character gained more depth and became more likable. It surprised me that it took so long for me to care. By the end of the book, I was completely invested and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series. I have so much hope for where the story is going to take me. Though it took a while for the plot to move as well, when the pace picked up, it went on overdrive. I still can’t get over that ending!
⅘ that started as a ⅗ until BAM the plot hit hard!
The Novel Llama 