Book Review: Dualed

TITLE: Dualed
Book 1 in a new series
AUTHOR: Elsie Chapman
PUBLISHED: February 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopianish, action
PREMISE: In a world where survival means knowing you'll have to kill someone before you're twenty, West is given her first assignment: kill her alt or be killed herself.
MY REVIEW: This book is one of the many YA books I've read recently that has the following problem: awesome concept but bad execution. This is a problem that has plagued YA over and over again. I feel like we need to sit authors down and tell them hey: don't publish a book till you've gone through it with a fine-toothed comb and plothole detector device. Also publishers, for gods sake, make your authors really sit there and read through their book. Because I bet, if more authors did that, we'd be having less books like this one.
Yes, technically it does have good writing style. The author is fabulous at action no doubt, she has a plot of sorts, and there is character in there somewhere. But once more: this makes no sense. I WANT to like this more but I'm constantly bothered by details that make no sense. I'm sorry, just who would even choose a society like this? How would pitting your citizens against each other in a battle to the death even ensure survival? Because...yeah, it doesn't make sense. At all. The more I think about it, the more confused I feel. Doesn't help that West is a extremely flat heroine.
So once again: great idea....bad execution. I am sad that I keep running into this problem with YA dystopians over and over again.
WHO SHOULD READ: Hunger Games fans, Enders Game fans
MY RATING: Three out of Five this doesn't make sense worlds