Thursday, April 12, 2012

the future is coming on

monica leonelle, from over at prose on fire, is the author of three books. i recently read the latest one, Socialpunk and decided to take part in her blog tour. If you read to the very end of this post (which will include an excerpt and review) there's a contest you can enter for cool prizes, like an ipad or kindle fire.  now on to more important things: the book.

socialpunk is the first book in a young adult dystopian trilogy which involves time travel (kind of), virtual realities, bionic eyes, and the ability to transfer money by touching someone's wrist. i'm going to try my best to keep this spoiler free, so i'll leave the plot describing to the blurb on the back of the book.

"Ima would give anything to escape The Dome and learn what’s beyond its barriers, but the Chicago government has kept all its citizens on lockdown ever since the Scorched Years left most of the world a desert wasteland. When a mysterious group of hooded figures enters the city unexpectedly, Ima uncovers a plot to destroy The Dome and is given the choice between escaping to a new, dangerous city or staying behind and fighting a battle she can never win."

the book moves between a couple of different time periods, but since neither of them are ours, there's no sense of the familiar vs the new. it's all new, but not entirely unbelievable. some of the new technology looks like future versions of things google is already working on. so if by the twenty second century we have google goggles embedded into our heads, well, i wouldn't be too shocked. and if we're living off shakes made from nutritional pills, isn't that what dieting is leading us to anyway? the book is a fast and easy read, and i suggest you read it in one sitting. getting it in a particularly crazy week, i was reading snippets whenever i got the chance, which is never a good way to lose yourself in a book. i'm planning on reading it again early summer when i'll have a good chunk of time to devote to it. though i wasn't a fan of many of the characters at first, a few of them did grow on me and the story pulls you in whether you like the characters or not. you read because you want to know what happens next. i felt that the main character, ima, was unrealistically slow at times and ready to risk her life for someone who seemed like a complete jerk to me, making her a bit hard to swallow at times. there were also a few times that the pacing felt rushed, though i'm sure i'd notice this less if i got to sit down and read more than a page or two at a time. there were some similarities to that justin timberlake movie that came out this year (the one i find myself constantly comparing things to and yet still can't remember the name of). for example, in the future, no one ages past twenty five and the whole transfer of currency by touch thing. if you like reading young adult, have any interest in futuristic worlds (did i mention that this one was filled with tech-savvy artists? right up my alley), and are looking for a quick but enjoyable read, you can get socialpunk at amazon or barnes and noble.

(since this post is already so long, i'm going to post the excerpt and contest in another one.)

*Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz

2 comments:

  1. anonymous hippopotamusApril 12, 2012 at 10:16 PM

    when i was reading the blurb i was like what the hell this is a mesh of In Time and The Hunger Games... (in time being the name of the movie you mentioned later on in the post)then i read on and you mentioned the movie and i felt validated, but yeah seems kind of 'eh' to me. :/

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  2. i mean, the world won't end if you don't read or anything, but i didn't want my life back at the end of it. i think i would label it as a project week book: when you have a million things going on so you can't start a book that will take too long/cause you to think too much, so you pick up something like this. i happen to enjoy these kind of books, you might not.

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