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simonlorden 's review for:
Blackout (Blackout #1)
by Kit Mallory
This book was June 2018's Sapphic Book Club read hosted by @sapphicliterature.
“It’s not a good thing, Skyler, being fearless. Fear’s there for a reason. The only way someone could turn out the way Angel is, I reckon, is if they really believed they didn’t have anything left to lose.”
My rating: 3.5 stars
Okay, so. This book. First of all, it was great to see a dystopia that wasn't set in the US - Blackout is set in the UK, and not even in London, which was another plus point. The original premise was interesting: the UK is somehow divided into two with a wall, the North and the South. Sort of like the Berlin Wall, I guess, only here the Southerners really hate the Northerners for some reason, and it's illegal for any Northerner to even be in the South? The anti-immigrant rhetoric was definitely very familiar from real life, but it was strange because it wasn't based on race or anything, they just... arbitrarily drew a line somewhere I guess? (Unless the whole point was supposed to be that hate against immigrants is always based on stupid arbitrary reasons? Not sure.)
Another thing I very rarely see in dystopias is that Blackout actually acknowledges the rest of the world exists, they just haven't sent help for whatever reason. But they are there, and they are a valid possibility if you want to reach out and get help.
Otherwise... at first, I felt like the plot was progressing really slowly. Don't get me wrong, there was always something happening - action scenes, backstory, flashbacks, etc. And yet I felt like we weren't really getting anywhere. This got better once the characters finally cracked the big secret and were staring at a time limit.
As for the characters: I actually sort of liked all three of the mains, especially Angel. I guess I just have a thing for angel-related characters with mysterious pasts? I also liked the main F/F relationship - there was some stupid drama at one point, but thankfully they sorted it out pretty fast.
One weird thing was that there were sometimes flashback chapters... with the exact same formatting as the present happenings. At one point, there was even a flashback within a flashback. Of course, you could figure out it was a flashback, but it was still sometimes confusing at first.
The book dragged on sometimes, but overall, I liked it enough to rate it 4 stars... although I'm not really satisfied with the ending. I'm not sure if there's going to be a sequel, but personally I found it too open, which I don't necessarily like - but that's a personal preference I guess.
“It’s not a good thing, Skyler, being fearless. Fear’s there for a reason. The only way someone could turn out the way Angel is, I reckon, is if they really believed they didn’t have anything left to lose.”
My rating: 3.5 stars
Okay, so. This book. First of all, it was great to see a dystopia that wasn't set in the US - Blackout is set in the UK, and not even in London, which was another plus point. The original premise was interesting: the UK is somehow divided into two with a wall, the North and the South. Sort of like the Berlin Wall, I guess, only here the Southerners really hate the Northerners for some reason, and it's illegal for any Northerner to even be in the South? The anti-immigrant rhetoric was definitely very familiar from real life, but it was strange because it wasn't based on race or anything, they just... arbitrarily drew a line somewhere I guess? (Unless the whole point was supposed to be that hate against immigrants is always based on stupid arbitrary reasons? Not sure.)
Another thing I very rarely see in dystopias is that Blackout actually acknowledges the rest of the world exists, they just haven't sent help for whatever reason. But they are there, and they are a valid possibility if you want to reach out and get help.
Otherwise... at first, I felt like the plot was progressing really slowly. Don't get me wrong, there was always something happening - action scenes, backstory, flashbacks, etc. And yet I felt like we weren't really getting anywhere. This got better once the characters finally cracked the big secret and were staring at a time limit.
As for the characters: I actually sort of liked all three of the mains, especially Angel. I guess I just have a thing for angel-related characters with mysterious pasts? I also liked the main F/F relationship - there was some stupid drama at one point, but thankfully they sorted it out pretty fast.
One weird thing was that there were sometimes flashback chapters... with the exact same formatting as the present happenings. At one point, there was even a flashback within a flashback. Of course, you could figure out it was a flashback, but it was still sometimes confusing at first.
The book dragged on sometimes, but overall, I liked it enough to rate it 4 stars... although I'm not really satisfied with the ending. I'm not sure if there's going to be a sequel, but personally I found it too open, which I don't necessarily like - but that's a personal preference I guess.