Thursday, January 15, 2015

Topian Review Starters by Lissa Price

Starters (Starters, #1)Starters by Lissa Price

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


While certainly not quite perfect, Lisa Price's debut Starters is surely entertaining and will definitely hold the void as readers anticipate more and more dystopian books in this relative fad; and will not fail to provide you with a few quality hours of entertainment, twists, and turns.

America is nearly destroyed by The Spore Wars, which wiped out everyone between the ages of 20 and 60. Following these events, teenage Callie and her deathly sick brother, Tyler, have no option but to run. And run. And run some more. But as time goes on, Tyler is growing sicker and sicker by the day, and Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations: a company that allows "Starters" (children under 20) to rent their bodies out to "Enders" (adults over sixty) who want to become young again. With no other option, Callie rents out her body out to an Ender in exchange for payment to help Tyler. But when the neurochip the surgeons put in Callie's head malfunctions, and Callie wakes up in the life as her renter, Callie discovers that Prime Destinations is more evil than she could have ever imagined. And she needs to stop them, before it's too late.

The wonderful thing about this book is that nothing is as it seems. There are so many absolutely brilliant twists thrown in (especially at the ending) that will boggle your mind.

Callie is a wonderful protagonist. What I really liked about Callie is how Lissa portrayed her as your average, typical teenager; and how easy that made it to connect with her on a deeper emotional level. I really enjoyed how brave, how kind, and how determined Callie was, even when she knew that everything was stacked up against her. She didn't give up, she fought for what she believed in and she was kind and loyal to those she loved and cared for. Even the supporting characters had a decent amount of depth to them. Every one of her characters was well-developed, and had so much personality. I really felt like I actually connected with each and every character in her story.

If I had even the tiniest complaint about Starters, it would definitely be about the world-building. The back story here, especially about the Spore Wars, is not necessarily the most intricate, and I also had some questions about life outside the US during this war and how it impacted other countries. Overall the world-building is relatively solid, but I would have liked there to have been a bit more detail to it.

Starters is SHELL-SHOCKING, STUNNING, HARECORE dystopian fiction, and I'd recommend it to anyone who's a fan of dystopian stories - especially books like Divergent and The Hunger Games. You won't be disappointed by Lissa Price's brilliant debut!




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