Summary:
Anthem is a rich teenage ballerina. She has a bright future ahead of her, yet she is not happy with her life. She wants to escape and let her hair down. She meets a boy from the wrong side of the tracks and falls in love with him. She risks a lot to spend time with him, including losing her virginity (all within the first 1/3 of the book). On that one faithful night, he's kidnapped and she falls to her death. When she wakes up with a new ticking heart, she wants revenge on those that kidnapped her boy toy (stated specifically because she has a rich boyfriend that's official). Pretty much the rest of the book is about seeking that revenge and some twists thrown in for good measure, just because she has to remain in somewhat of danger and mistrust.
My thoughts:
Well, I wrote the summary in a way that seems like the same old story because I felt that way. This is a story that seems to be the same as stories gone by. The rich girl meets bad boy but can't be with him thing is done a lot. There is nothing particularly new about that within this story. I was looking forward to the hummingbird heart aspect of the novel, but the workings of it aren't gone into in depth. Honestly, this reads more like a mystery romance than a science fiction. The world building isn't up to what you would expect in either a science fiction or dystopian novel. It is reminiscent of Gotham, and the author relies on the readers general knowledge of what that would be like instead of making it her own. The characters are okay. Anthem is difficult to like. It's hard to be in the story with her because the motivations behind her actions are rather silly. It's not that we don't do stupid things for love, but we often explain those things away. Anthem doesn't. Then the second half of the book attempts to bring in mystery and suspense, but falls flat. Most of this is because the predictability of the story. It's hard to build suspense when the reader knows what is going to happen. Finally, there is a rather large cliffhanger at the end, most likely promising another book. I'm not sure if I'll read it.
People will get sucked in by the beautiful cover (as I did), but will likely be disappointed by the overall execution. I would have liked to see more development with setting and characters to really pull off the promise of the premise.
Anthem is a rich teenage ballerina. She has a bright future ahead of her, yet she is not happy with her life. She wants to escape and let her hair down. She meets a boy from the wrong side of the tracks and falls in love with him. She risks a lot to spend time with him, including losing her virginity (all within the first 1/3 of the book). On that one faithful night, he's kidnapped and she falls to her death. When she wakes up with a new ticking heart, she wants revenge on those that kidnapped her boy toy (stated specifically because she has a rich boyfriend that's official). Pretty much the rest of the book is about seeking that revenge and some twists thrown in for good measure, just because she has to remain in somewhat of danger and mistrust.
My thoughts:
Well, I wrote the summary in a way that seems like the same old story because I felt that way. This is a story that seems to be the same as stories gone by. The rich girl meets bad boy but can't be with him thing is done a lot. There is nothing particularly new about that within this story. I was looking forward to the hummingbird heart aspect of the novel, but the workings of it aren't gone into in depth. Honestly, this reads more like a mystery romance than a science fiction. The world building isn't up to what you would expect in either a science fiction or dystopian novel. It is reminiscent of Gotham, and the author relies on the readers general knowledge of what that would be like instead of making it her own. The characters are okay. Anthem is difficult to like. It's hard to be in the story with her because the motivations behind her actions are rather silly. It's not that we don't do stupid things for love, but we often explain those things away. Anthem doesn't. Then the second half of the book attempts to bring in mystery and suspense, but falls flat. Most of this is because the predictability of the story. It's hard to build suspense when the reader knows what is going to happen. Finally, there is a rather large cliffhanger at the end, most likely promising another book. I'm not sure if I'll read it.
People will get sucked in by the beautiful cover (as I did), but will likely be disappointed by the overall execution. I would have liked to see more development with setting and characters to really pull off the promise of the premise.
Melissa B. (dragoneyes) -
I haven't read a book I detested this much in a long time. Usually I wouldn't have bothered finishing this book but since I was reviewing it for the Vine program, I thought it would only be a fair review if I did finish. There are so many things wrong with this book. First off, I'm really into post-apocalyptic/dystopian books right now. I got the impression from some of the descriptions that this was a dystopian novel. I did not see that in this one at all. The definition for dystopian is "a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding". This book had the rich side of town and the poor side of town. We have that everywhere. That does not make it dytopian. Another problem was the names she gave some of the minor characters. These would have been names I came up with in 2nd grade. Names like Belinda Bullet, Olive Ann Bang, Clementine Fitz, Mr. Brick (who happens to be a former soldier). Even the heroine's name "Anthem Fleet" seems a bit far fetched. There is one part where her friend tells her she'll be turning 18 in a few months, then later in the books she says she won't be turning 18 for another 7 months. Get the story straight. This book was totally predictable, the whole premise was ludicrous, and most of the characters weren't even believable. I'm going to go into some more details on this but it will contain spoilers. So don't read on if you don't want to know...
**SPOILERS**
Anthem receives a heart that is made from the stem cells of a hummingbird heart. The makes her heart pump blood extremely faster which in turn makes her run faster (okay, I can somewhat live with that bit of silliness). But then it also makes her hair a deeper shade of red, her eyes greener, she's much stronger. Now, if you can believe that a new heart would do all of that, can you possibly believe that it will make you fly too? It's just too ridiculous.
Everything also works out too neatly for her. She quit showing up to ballet practice for a while. When she came back, she was (of course) amazing. The teacher wouldn't let her have the major role in Giselle though since she had missed so much practice. Conveniently, the girl who has the lead role badly twists her ankle within the next 2 pages. Bet you didn't see that coming.
Or how about where it takes 5 pages to explain how she learns to shoot.... boring. Especially when you know she's going to be perfect at it by the end. Or how she learns to fight and is so good at it within no time.
Then the plot twist is really no twist at all. Soon after Gavin was kidnapped I had guessed where the book was going. There were no surprises.
**END SPOILERS** - I really tried hard to pull something out of the book that I liked but really can't find anything. It was just too absurdly written. I was very happy when it ended though.
**SPOILERS**
Anthem receives a heart that is made from the stem cells of a hummingbird heart. The makes her heart pump blood extremely faster which in turn makes her run faster (okay, I can somewhat live with that bit of silliness). But then it also makes her hair a deeper shade of red, her eyes greener, she's much stronger. Now, if you can believe that a new heart would do all of that, can you possibly believe that it will make you fly too? It's just too ridiculous.
Everything also works out too neatly for her. She quit showing up to ballet practice for a while. When she came back, she was (of course) amazing. The teacher wouldn't let her have the major role in Giselle though since she had missed so much practice. Conveniently, the girl who has the lead role badly twists her ankle within the next 2 pages. Bet you didn't see that coming.
Or how about where it takes 5 pages to explain how she learns to shoot.... boring. Especially when you know she's going to be perfect at it by the end. Or how she learns to fight and is so good at it within no time.
Then the plot twist is really no twist at all. Soon after Gavin was kidnapped I had guessed where the book was going. There were no surprises.
**END SPOILERS** - I really tried hard to pull something out of the book that I liked but really can't find anything. It was just too absurdly written. I was very happy when it ended though.
