I got this book on loan from my mom a number of years ago. She had received it through Amazon VIne and knew I as in a dystopian reading phase at the time. I read the first 80 pages of this book and finally stopped reading because those 80 pages were a struggle for me.

This is compared to “A Handmaid’s Tale” by Atwood; there are some similarities but “A Handmaid’s Tale” was way better. Our main heroine Harper lives in a world where a totalitarian government has taken over after an act of viral terrorism takes out 50% of the country’s population. Certain words have been red-listed and if you say them you can be brutally punished. In addition, drugs and sex are provided by the government as a sort of service to the people.

I did find the fact that Harper was a Sentient interesting; this meant that she had certain powers that allowed her to see people’s moods and predict events ahead of time. Unfortunately, the setting and idea behind the rest of this book was much more typical dystopian and I didn’t enjoy it much.

I did not like how the story was formatted. It jumps from the 2020’s to the 2040’s willy nilly; even jumping back and forth between different months during the same years. It was very hard to keep track off and I was constantly paging back through the chapters and checking the timeline to try and put the story together.

The main heroine was not all that engaging; she seems strangely remote and passive. The writing style was hard to read; it didn’t flow very well and I found myself re-reading portions over and over again.

Overall this ended up being a book I had absolutely no interest in. The world, the story, the characters...none of them really grabbed my attention. Nothing here was unique enough for me to put forth the energy required to get through the jumping around and hard to read writing. Not recommended. ( )

I picked up Laura Bynum’s VERACITY because of the interesting concept and strong writing in the few page sample I read. The concept has protagonist Harper Adams living in a dystopian society that formed in the aftermath of a large-scale bioterrorism attack. The interesting part is that this society tries to control thought, and thereby rebellion, by controlling language. They’ve red listed words that cause trouble, and the way they enforce this red list is particularly clever. Everyone has a gizmo surgically implanted when they’re young that is tied to their nervous system; it gives a tremendous shock when a red listed word is spoken. Ouch! And this nasty little thing is implanted in such a way that it can’t be removed without killing the victim.

The story is told from tightly within the perspective of Harper. Bynum’s prose are excellent and she does a great job of fleshing out this world. It begins at the moment when Harper tries to escape this horrific society, then the narrative jumps back in time to fill in the blanks of Harper’s life. The novel proceeds like that throughout, jumping back and forth in time. Such time-hopping can be annoying in stories, but Bynum does a great job of keeping everything clear and enjoyable.

About half of the story details the buildup to Harper’s escape attempt, and this is extremely interesting as we learn of her life inside this society. It was a real page-turner to that point. Then it goes into Harper with the rebellion and the story really slows down. It’s almost like Bynum’s original idea didn’t include anything beyond the buildup to the escape. It was a real disappointment given how strong the story was in the first half. The whole rebellion came off as contrived and unrealistic.

Nevertheless, Bynum’s prose alone are enough to make me want to look at what she does from here on out. I’d love to see what she can do with a fully fleshed-out concept.
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great book ( )

After half of the population of the United States is wiped out in an act of domestic terrorism in 2012, a new government arises and now in 2045 the population is controlled by any and all means necessary. On the one hand, there is placation with government-sanctioned drugs and sex, but on the other hand, there is a brutal police force and a mandatory implant that monitors every word a person speaks. Over the years certain words have become “red-listed” and to say them risks punishment (via the monitor, dubbed “the slate”) or death.

The story opens with the powerful, riveting, first person narrative of Harper Adams, a young mother and government employee, who is about to resist the government’s control by uttering a red-listed word with the hopes of surviving whatever the slate will do to her. From this first chapter the narrative moves to the backstory and then alternates between real time and the past.

It’s difficult to create a believable near future world in a moderately-sized novel, but Bynum has done a reasonably good job, well enough to serve as stage for Harper Adams’s compelling story of resistance. The most thought-provoking aspect of the novel is a general meditation on the power of words, for in Bynum’s near future world, language is a crime, and new words are added to the “red-list” fairly frequently. The weakness in the story is the unnecessary inclusion of a love interest which dilutes Harper’s personal power for the reader. Despite that weakness, Bynum delivers a fast-paced, enjoyable and thought-provoking story. ( )

Veracity by Laura Bynum is a chilling look at a world in the not-too-far-future where a totalitarian government suppresses the populous to the extent that the are forbidden from saying certain prohibited words. If they do speak the words, a special slate implant in their throat will cause them great pain, and possible death. Blue Coats use violence to keep the people in order, along with Monitors, who have developed some psychic abilities such as the ability to read auras, travel astrally, and speak inside each others heads. Harper is a Monitor who decides to join the rebels when her best friend's daughter is killed. The story revolves around Harper and the rebels she joins up with.

I greatly enjoyed the world created by the Author. It felt authentic to me. I'd love to see a sequel! ( )