The Gender Game is a new take on dystopian worlds for me. I liked that they were divided by gender, though I did not like the way men and women were treated in each respective land.
Matrus is ruled by women and men are little more than an inconvenience to most women there.
Patrus is ruled by men, women are "owned" by their husbands there and can not do anything without them or a guardian appointed by their husband.

We first meet Violet our MC when she is trying to sneak her brother across the river into Patrus, since he was marked as too aggressive for Matrus. Things do not go as planned and both Violet and her brother are captured. Her brother is sent off and we don't really learn anything besides he was sent up north to the mines ( or was he?)

Violet has had it rough since her brother was captured and carted off, she has been in and out of trouble, committed womanslaughter twice and is now facing certain death. When she is given the chance to wipe her slate clean; by retrieving something that Patrus "stole" from Matrus she eventually takes it with the stipulation that she gets to visit her brother.

This is where things really slowed down for me, and I started only reading a chapter at night before bed. I couldn't see Violet in Patrus acting like one of their women. She was so lively and kick ass. But to be subservient and meek was totally out of character for her.

I won't give too much more away, Violet starts to finally come back into character. The retrieval goes off without a hitch, and then, of course, there is another twist thrown in. I'm reading the next book now, mainly because I need to know if Violet ever finds her brother. ( )

This book started out with so much promise that it makes me sad to write this review and it's part of why I've put it off so incredibly long. The female-male divide of this worlds and how it works was wonderful. The love affair was just annoying. The main character spends a lot of time talking about knowing things she has no possiblity of know. But worst of all?

There's are two points where the author breaks all realism. When the main character has been burned on the inside of arm with a glowing poker and manages to fight a battle even using that arm, without complaint about the pain all the way through, and when a character's hand (or fingers) have been broken but she manages to still fight off an opponent and get a vehicle under control all before remembering her fingers are broken.

Sorry. That's too much breaking the realism box. I won't be continuing this series. ( )

3.75...I'm hesitant to give it a 4, because there were a few "slow" spots, but otherwise, I enjoyed it. Looking forward to reading the remaining books. ( )

Really fun read, looking forward to the rest of the story. ( )

From the first chapter this book had me hooked. Good character & plot development. Good pace to the story as well. Away to start the 2nd book in series now. ( )