Title: Special
Author: Georgia Blain
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Science Fiction
Length: 320
Rating: 3 Star
Description/Synopsis:
I am not Delia Greene. I should not be here. Why haven’t they come for me?
Alone in my room, I log onto the Wastelands, the data dump where anonymity is guaranteed, where people go to throw their unfilled hopes and dreams, their despair, their pain, their loneliness, a great tangle and mess of words that cannot be unravelled, and I start to tell this story. The names are changed. So are the locations. As for the rest? It is up to you to choose what you want to believe . . .
Special is a beautifully crafted and atmospheric YA novel set in the not-too-distant future, where corporations control everyone’s lives from their DNA to their schooling and career. Where a Lotto Girl – designed from before birth to be Special in every way – can escape the slums and be given every opportunity to shine at an exclusive boarding school. Where the future is bright. Until it all goes wrong . . .
Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
I would like to say a big thank you to Penguin Random House Australia for sending me a copy of this book to review!
I don’t really know how I feel about this book.
Part of me really wants to like it. The idea of it is pretty good, and it is totally something I can see our world turning into. Children are altered to become ‘specials’ mostly by rich people, but once a year 4 families from the poor districts win ‘the lotto’ and get to genetically alter their baby girl to be and have her go off and study at the special schools for the specials. These people thrive far above the rest while those who are poor remain their and live each day at a time because they might not have a next one because they don’t get given a chance to even earn enough for the one day.
See, good idea and totally something our meddlesome ways could potentially head towards. This idea combined with the very easy to read and well flowing writing style of Georgia Blain had me charging through this book up until about two thirds of the way through where my enjoyment sort of just stopped.
It was at this point that I realised that I hadn’t really formed any kind of attachment to the characters. They start to go through some stuff and found that I didn’t really care. I actually didn’t like our main character Fern that much she took her whole ‘special’ title way too seriously and was really up herself.
Spoiler – Then when she finds out she is probably isn’t so damn special she totally freaks out which I don’t get. If anything I feel like I would like to find that out, because she was able to keep up with all the other specials even though she was normal. But no, she totally freaks out because she cannot call herself special anymore. – End Spoiler
We don’t get any world building, and nothing in the plot really gets explained or we don’t get any answers to things. I know part of the book is that you are supposed to make your own choice about how things work out or what is the truth, but I don’t think that worked. The story because nothing was really answered seemed pretty pointless to me.
I don’t know if I would recommend this book to anyone. If you have free day to fill I wouldn’t say not to read it, but there are better things. It has made me want to read more from the author though because the style was nice.
Till Next Time…
