Book 1 in the Mystic City series
AUTHOR: Theo Lawrence
PUBLISHED: October
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopian, fantasy, romance, drama
PREMISE: Aria is engaged to the son of her family's political rivals. She's been told they had a passionate affair and are madly in love but she doesn't remember any of it.
MY REVIEW: This was the last book I read in the year of 2012 and I have to say it wasn't a bad way to end the year. Not going to lie, I mostly read it for the cover. It's even prettier in person. Then it promised me X-Men combined with Hunger Games and Matched. Well, that just makes you have to pick it up. Now I will say, I don't see where the Hunger Games comes in. But I definitely see the X-Men allusions as well as the similarities to Matched (but thankfully this is not as dreadfully dull as Matched).
This book is clever and is building on this emergence of dystopian/fantasy that I've been noticing (and am all for by the way). Aria is a nice character. Not a brilliant one but I'm pleased to report that she has a backbone, cares about others, and gets that the world doesn't revolve around her starcrossed romance. Her love interest is actually a likeable guy (really nice change) and I actually want these two Romeo and Juliet wannabes to work out. However the strength of this book is more the interesting world that Lawrence has built and the fact that there's always something going on. Lawrence does not bore me to tears with melodrama (though there is some) or constant declarations of love. For once a romance inclined dystopian didn't bore me. Also nice to see was nice writing. Lawrence has great dialogue and nice prose that don't go overboard but aren't bland.
So this was a decent debut. I definitely give the author points for making me interested in a dystopian when one considers just how crowded with dystopian YA has become.
WHO SHOULD READ: Matched fans, X-Men fans, dystopian fans, Urban Fantasy fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five Romeo and Juliets who are smarter than Romeo and Juliet
so glad that you enjoyed this book. This was another one that I enjoyed too :)
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