This book is incredibly ambitious, and I have a lot of respect for what it is trying to do. I’m just not sure that it is successful in achieving it. 

I’m very pro-criticising capitalism and for profit government and climate inaction and objectifying children and spectator detachment and—

However, I think a lot of these were ideas  thrown at a wall to see what would stick, and there’s not a lot of robust worldbuilding underpinning them. How your reality was created shouldn’t be revealed 84% of the way through the book as a part of a twist (??). If the whole crux of the novel is that the televised death of a person is worth 500,000 credits to a corporation, why are those deaths not of the people we spend tons of time villainizing for being ‘weak’ for being trapped in the debt-ridden hellscape, not their innocent children? Where is the supposed viewer buy-in to see dead kids? What satisfaction do they get from that? It just doesn’t make any SENSE. Especially once we see that there is actual viewer SYMPATHY for the victims. Also I can’t get over the lack of collectivism, the lack of community or solidarity present. This tries to be hunger games without the philosophical heart that Collins put in that book. 

The characters are interesting, the romance and pacing feels off, the vicious trained killers…fail to kill anyone successfully. Idk man. The big scary corporation pulls a lot of punches for something supposedly all powerful and ruthless. There’s no actual consequences for failing to carry out the will of said corporation. 

And at the end…what has truly changed? 

I’m sure there are people out there that will love this one, but it wasn’t for me. 

*Arc provided by netgalley, opinions are my own