Scookie Reviews

SECONDBORN by Amy Bartol 2 Stars Verdict: Hard to connect. Although Rosella is royalty, she is also secondborn in a society that only has room for firstborns. At eighteen, Rosella's rights are stripped, her last name is changed to 'Sword', and she is sent to the front line to serve her country. This one started strong and had a lot of creatives little ideas - the black and red disks for the medical bots, the fusion blades, the secondborns' surnames changed to 'Sword' - but it never really set itself apart from the dystopian mass in terms of plot, characters, and setting. At times it felt like the Capital in Hunger Games: blue lips, interviews with a girl sent off to die, special outfits designed for the occasion, face of the rebellion...Other times, it felt all over the place, and it never really came together to form a coherent story. Things kept happening that didn't fully make sense. For example, Rosella's mother orders her to die...

THE GENDER GAME by Bella Forrest 4 Stars Verdict: Improves along the way. Two sides of the river, each ruled by a different gender, both on the cusp of war. When Violet accidentally commits womanslaughter, she's given one last chance at life - to cross the river to the male dominated state where woman's rights are suppressed, and steal back a mysterious egg that contains her country's secrets. I almost wrote this off early as another not-as-good-as-the-Hunger-Games dystopian book. The writing style is quite flat and sometimes overly explanatory. Some of the main characters, like Lee, lack personality, and there was a lot of Q&A dolled out by a dull character in said flat tone. The concept also seemed reliant on the reader not caring too much about why a delinquent who has killed two women by accident is the only one right for a secret mission. However, the pace and world building seemed reasonable though, so I was set to offer it three stars. But it got bett...