Melissa B. (dragoneyes) - , reviewed on 3/4/2014 + 811 more book reviews

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.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details