Control by Lydia Kang

ARC, 393 pages

Release Date: December 26, 2013
Published by: Dial Books for Young Readers

Contol, #1

For fans of: Action, Biomedical, Dystopia, Sci Fi, Romance, Sparkly Covers


An un-putdownable thriller for fans of Uglies

     When a crash kills their father and leaves them orphaned, Zel knows she needs to protect her sister, Dyl. But before Zel has a plan, Dyl is taken by strangers using bizarre sensory weapons, and Zel finds herself in a safe house for teens who aren’t like any she’s ever seen before—teens who shouldn’t even exist. Using broken-down technology, her new friends’ peculiar gifts, and her own grit, Zel must find a way to get her sister back from the kidnappers who think a powerful secret is encoded in Dyl’s DNA.
     A spiraling, intense, romantic story set in 2150—in a world of automatic cars, nightclubs with auditory ecstasy drugs, and guys with four arms—this is about the human genetic “mistakes” that society wants to forget, and the way that outcasts can turn out to be heroes.
 

*MY THOUGHTS*

     When I say I was disappointed in this, I mean that in highest form… That doesn’t even make sense, but that’s how my brain felt after reading this. Like mush. And it wasn’t even from all the science in it. It was mainly from all the problems. It was slowwww and felt dragged out. But there was one thing holding me on… The world-building. 
     What I love about dystopians and futuristic settings is they really show the author’s writing skills. I could easily tell that her imagination was huge. And I loved that because I was able to see the exact way Zel and Dyl’s world was in my mind’s eye. The only bad thing about that was I felt like it was over done. It felt like there was a lot of fluff in the book that drug it out so much.
     With that being said, I also felt like it was a lot of stuff going on but the plot was still moving along like this: /____________________/ And the spike at the beginning is the first chapter and it obviously doesn’t spike again until the climax at the end. Which even then wasn’t all that significant because most of the story was predictable. 
     Now, with me not being much of a dystopian fan, I haven’t read very many. And for me to still be able to predict everything that happened in this one says a lot about how everything was so…. overdone. It was like it tried way to hard to be it’s own book. It seemed like a lot f others. For instance, at one time I was heavily reminded of Divergent by Veronica Roth. Which I was ok with because we all know I loved Divergent. It just seemed like it wasn’t its own story. 
     When it was all said and done, the only thing that kept me reading this was the world building and the science. I had put way too much time in to see where the science thing was going. Although I knew what would happen, I just needed to see it officially. And I have to admit for the world-building I just wanted to see if there was anything else that might have been introduced. It was a pretty wild, predictable ride, but for you it may be worth the ride. 
Overall, I give this

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