Author--Katie Kacvinsky
Publisher-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
At First Glance-My opinion before reading the book based on the synopsis, reviews I have read and cover attraction.
Plot-Awaken, a dystopian novel based in 2060. Where technology has now dominated the lives of everyone to the point where individuals spend 95% less communicating face to face. Crime, Teenage Pregnancy, Crime Rates and other issues have been reduced almost completely all because of Digital School and the advancement in technology. But at what cost?
Madeline Freeman is used to this lifestyle. Chatting with hundreds of people online every day without any worries. But she feels as if something is missing from her life.Then she meets Justin who teaches her the world outside technology and Madeline begins to see how much humans have enclosed themselves in their own little worlds. In this Novel, Madeline begins to struggle on whether to fight for what she believes to be right or to hurt those she loves.
As I stated before, I really like this plot. As I look at the 21st century, a future such as the one in Awaken seems to be more realistic every day. I felt like I could really relate to Madeline and her transition from an enclosed lifestyle to a more open environment without technology. Her struggle to do whats right also made me reflect to myself many times in the book where I asked myself 'Is technology really beneficial to us all?' Of course even today we face similar conflicts that we see in Awaken such as how much time we let technology dominate our lives and how much face to face interaction we actually do..
Characters- Madeline at first seemed like most of the teenagers I know today. Reluctant to get a life. But I got used to her as she progressed into the story and began to gain more of an independent personality. I like that she is reluctant to join the cause against DS showing that she's cautious and knows when to think for herself. She doesn't let her lifestyle affect her judgement on those who fight against DS or for those who support DS. She shows us the good and bad sides of both worlds, the digital and real world. Letting the reader see the pros and cons of both. I like Madeline but i'm not too Crazy about her.
Justin is just too stiff. Even when we begin to see his feelings I feel as if he's too distant from the reader and I can't really like him as a character.
Overall decision- I did find the story a little slow paced for me. Other than deciding whether she wants to fight with or against her father and a romantic struggle with Justin, Madeline didn't really have much to do. Of course, I love some romance in my books but I felt this book was more romantic and distracted me from what it was really about. But I still enjoyed reading it and from the ending I can tell there'll definitely be a sequel and i'll be waiting for it.
So I recommend this to anyone who's into dystopian novels. If your looking for anything action packed then don't look here because as I said before, the story can get a little slow. But I will definitely buy this once it hits the stores.
1 comments:
Hmm, well, now that premise sounds very intriguing. I like dystopian novels but I'm a bit iffy at a few of them because not a lot of them are done well (not mentioning any names...).
I'll probably wait to pick this up until later - it's one of those books that I'm interested in reading, but keep putting off until later. :P
(btw, I didn't mention this in your IMM post so I may as well mention it here so I won't spam your blog up too much, but I LOVE your use of "k's" for kritik. My name is Kristina, with a K, so I love it when people will substitute K's for C's. xD My other bloggy friend has a blog named Oktopus Ink, and she ironically became my bestest blog-friend from my initial love of her use of the letter "k" :P!)
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