Acid by Emma Pass
May. 21st, 2014 03:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
ACID – the most brutal police force in history.
They rule with an iron fist.
They see everything. They know everything.
They locked me away for life.
My crime?
They say I murdered my parents.
I was fifteen years old.
My name is Jenna Strong.
It’s the year 2113. After years of financial crises drove Britain to the point of collapse, ACID (the police force) took over, taking Britain out of the EU and closing it off from the rest of the world. 17-year-old Jenna Strong’s parents were part of the elite and she enjoyed a privileged life in London right up until she accidentally killed them. For the last two years she’s been in Mileway Maximum Security Prison but during a prison riot, she discovers that the prison doctor is part of a group willing to do anything to get her out – even if it means sacrificing themselves.
Now on the run, she wants to know what the group has planned for her. But answers are slow in coming and there’s danger on all sides, not least from the prison doctor’s son – who’s been convinced by ACID propaganda that Jenna killed his father during her escape …
Emma Pass’s YA dystopian novel is a so-so affair that takes the elements common to the genre (a kick-ass female main character, obligatory romance and brutal, totalitarian regime) but doesn’t really do anything new with them. It’s very much a book about identity and Jenna has three of them in the course of this book, which actually made it difficult for me to empathise with her. This is compounded by her actions in the final quarter of the book, which are supposed to be noble but are actually driven by selfishness and stupidity. I also found the romance unconvincing, mainly because Max is underdeveloped and he and Jenna don’t really have any conversations to justify the relationship. There are some interesting ideas in the book – I particularly liked the creepy Jacob and his group of anarchists but the plot line is over too quickly without really exploring the implications. Ultimately it’s an okay read and I kept turning the pages but while there’s potential for a sequel here, I wouldn’t rush to read it (although I would read Pass’s other work).
Given that the book is named after the police force, I wanted to discover more about how they and the totalitarian regime operated. Unfortunately, the regime is broad brushstrokes at best and the main two-dimensional and I actually kinda wished that the plot had been spread over more than one book to give the world building more room to breathe.
The Verdict:
Emma Pass’s YA dystopian novel is a so-so affair that takes the elements common to the genre (a kick-ass female main character, obligatory romance and brutal, totalitarian regime) but doesn’t really do anything new with them. It’s very much a book about identity and Jenna has three of them in the course of this book, which actually made it difficult for me to empathise with her. This is compounded by her actions in the final quarter of the book, which are supposed to be noble but are actually driven by selfishness and stupidity. I also found the romance unconvincing, mainly because Max is underdeveloped and he and Jenna don’t really have any conversations to justify the relationship. There are some interesting ideas in the book – I particularly liked the creepy Jacob and his group of anarchists but the plot line is over too quickly without really exploring the implications. Ultimately it’s an okay read and I kept turning the pages but while there’s potential for a sequel here, I wouldn’t rush to read it (although I would read Pass’s other work).
They rule with an iron fist.
They see everything. They know everything.
They locked me away for life.
My crime?
They say I murdered my parents.
I was fifteen years old.
My name is Jenna Strong.
It’s the year 2113. After years of financial crises drove Britain to the point of collapse, ACID (the police force) took over, taking Britain out of the EU and closing it off from the rest of the world. 17-year-old Jenna Strong’s parents were part of the elite and she enjoyed a privileged life in London right up until she accidentally killed them. For the last two years she’s been in Mileway Maximum Security Prison but during a prison riot, she discovers that the prison doctor is part of a group willing to do anything to get her out – even if it means sacrificing themselves.
Now on the run, she wants to know what the group has planned for her. But answers are slow in coming and there’s danger on all sides, not least from the prison doctor’s son – who’s been convinced by ACID propaganda that Jenna killed his father during her escape …
Emma Pass’s YA dystopian novel is a so-so affair that takes the elements common to the genre (a kick-ass female main character, obligatory romance and brutal, totalitarian regime) but doesn’t really do anything new with them. It’s very much a book about identity and Jenna has three of them in the course of this book, which actually made it difficult for me to empathise with her. This is compounded by her actions in the final quarter of the book, which are supposed to be noble but are actually driven by selfishness and stupidity. I also found the romance unconvincing, mainly because Max is underdeveloped and he and Jenna don’t really have any conversations to justify the relationship. There are some interesting ideas in the book – I particularly liked the creepy Jacob and his group of anarchists but the plot line is over too quickly without really exploring the implications. Ultimately it’s an okay read and I kept turning the pages but while there’s potential for a sequel here, I wouldn’t rush to read it (although I would read Pass’s other work).
Given that the book is named after the police force, I wanted to discover more about how they and the totalitarian regime operated. Unfortunately, the regime is broad brushstrokes at best and the main two-dimensional and I actually kinda wished that the plot had been spread over more than one book to give the world building more room to breathe.
The Verdict:
Emma Pass’s YA dystopian novel is a so-so affair that takes the elements common to the genre (a kick-ass female main character, obligatory romance and brutal, totalitarian regime) but doesn’t really do anything new with them. It’s very much a book about identity and Jenna has three of them in the course of this book, which actually made it difficult for me to empathise with her. This is compounded by her actions in the final quarter of the book, which are supposed to be noble but are actually driven by selfishness and stupidity. I also found the romance unconvincing, mainly because Max is underdeveloped and he and Jenna don’t really have any conversations to justify the relationship. There are some interesting ideas in the book – I particularly liked the creepy Jacob and his group of anarchists but the plot line is over too quickly without really exploring the implications. Ultimately it’s an okay read and I kept turning the pages but while there’s potential for a sequel here, I wouldn’t rush to read it (although I would read Pass’s other work).
