UPDATE: 17/06/2021 - Reread and enjoyed it quite a lot more than the first time so I'm keeping the rating of 3.5 Stars but am rounding up to 4!

CW: Gruesome deaths, medical experiments

Well that was a good plot driven book with a sufficient amount of mystery to keep Readers guessing.

I thought the dystopian prison concept was brilliant and some parts made for gritty reading. The ideas felt a bit underdeveloped and it isn't until the end that you realise why we are largely left in the dark during the novel. I am not a huge fan of that style of abrupt ending but I guess the expletives I let fly was a reflection of my investment levels. A slightly choppy writing style but again that could be a device used to support the dramatic action sequences and the slightly confused state of the main characters as they try to make sense of their predicament. An engaging book. I have purchased four copies for the library as I think this is going to be popular! ( )

Fall 2021 (October);
~ School Book Club

Sooooo that was a thing I just read in the last day and a half. I still feel like I really don't actually know enough about what's going on in this book, in this universe to have any clue what my real opinion is of what happened in the book. There is a bit of a download come the end of the novel about how, what, who, why, but I still feel really disengaged.

This whole book is a lot of rush, rush, rush or ship-in-a-bottle circumstances. I'm going to need to let it play out in my head for a while, but currently, I'm not all that intrigued/needing to know what happens in the next book. I'll read it if the school book club decided to, but not likely on my own. ( )

Read this one late into the night. It started out confusing, figuring out what “Alt” and “Natural”, etc were, then it all clicked and I couldn’t stop reading. Talk about a commentary on today’s society and the abuse humans inflict on the world, damaging the environment, hating on one another. I loved the character of Luka and how he becomes the unspoken leader, hero of the story. If you like Hunger Games, Maze Runner, etc, you will like this book! ( )

Luka Kane is imprisoned in the Loop, a high tech jail for minors where inmates can extend their lives by agreeing to experimental treatments and they are harvested for energy for 6 hours every day. Things are very routine from the morning greeting from the AI on the screen, Happy, and the rain that falls for a half hour each night. But things start glitching and while Luka is assured "everything is as it should be", it's not. When a weird illness causes people to start smiling and committing murder, a select group of prisoners manage to break out with the goal to try to topple the system. ( )

This book was hard to put down once I started. I will admit I had to get in the mood for it. That took some time as with everything that has been happening I just wanted to read light stuff for awhile. This is not light. It was riveting though. Having a child who is in the prison system made it more real to me even though it is very futuristic. I liked the characters for the most part. Luka reminded me of my son in his character. This caused me to cry in some parts. I could imagine parts of it that my son deals with. The story at times drew to mind The Hunger Games, The Institute and The Maze. The setting is inside a juvenile prison that would break adults and then later, outside it. It’s hard to say where the most horror was. I’m not a big sci-fi reader. I rarely pick that genre. But this book, which I would place it in that genre, was a clear winner for me. I literally woke up and started reading in the middle of the night because I needed to know what was happening. When the war part begins you will not stop reading so prepare for that. It is a book that brings up some interesting things to discuss. I think it would be good for an older teen and up book club. I think it could easily be made to the screen. It was a super interesting book for me. I would recommend it to those who enjoy Sci-Fi, action, thriller, horror and fantasy genres.

Thank you to the author and Goodreads who provided a copy of this book through the Goodreads Giveaway program. I am grateful to be a winner as I truly enjoyed this book and it isn’t one I would normally chose. My opinions of the book are true and based upon my reading of it. I voluntarily reviewed this book. ( )