Sigh. This book bums me out. I had such high hopes for it. I've liked previous novels from this author, and I liked the idea that this was a standalone novel.

I know that many people are over the dystopian craze, but I don't mind admitting that I still enjoy a good dystopian novel. Emphasis on the word 'good'. Unfortunately, I had so many issues with this book that I wouldn't call it good. I would barely call it mediocre.

Many spoilers follow.

Characters: 2/5
Aya (a.k.a. Ayaina, a.k.a. Clover) is ridiculous. She is supposed to be this street-smart (Wilderness smart?) girl who is able to outsmart everyone around her in order to manipulate situations to her advantage. The trouble is, she's an idiot. She acts impetuously and without any thoughts to the consequences of her actions, even when it's obvious that the consequences will be severe. She thinks she's playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers...unfortunately, I think Candyland is more her style.
Kiran (a.k.a Varick, because apparently the characters in this book need several names.) is a Driver, a selective mute belonging to a group of selective mutes who is also supposed to be intelligent...but he falls for Aya...so I'm really having trouble buying him as an intelligent guy. Aya doesn't think he can speak at first, or even understand her, and ends up telling him all about herself. Meanwhile, he knows exactly what she's saying and let's her keep talking and baring her soul to him...because THAT'S not creepy. You know from the beginning that this is supposed to be a love interest, but it just does nothing for me. At all.
She gets all jealous when he's nice to other female characters, and I'm like, "YOU'VE KNOWN HIM FOR LIKE A WEEK. YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HE HAD THE ABILITY TO SPEAK OR UNDERSTAND ENGLISH. JUST STOP."
Near the end of the book she gets all metaphysical, talking about how his soul belongs to her and hers belongs to him. Basically they are in love forever and ever...but she doesn't even know that one of the girls she's jealous of is actually his little sister. Don't you think you should know something...anything...about the person you're supposedly head over heels in love with?!?! They have no real conversations getting to know each other, but we're supposed to be okay with that because they have a 'connection.' 🤢
Side characters: None of them are fleshed-out enough to actually comment on. There are so many things alluded to that are never explained or explored as far as characters and their backstories...this really felt like half a book, which brings us to...

Plot: 1/5
1. Wild girl gets kidnapped and put up for auction
2. Wild girl escapes from creepy owners with help of quiet boy.
3. Wild girl runs home, just to run back to the city to save her relatives.
4. Wild girl and quiet boy run back to quiet camp and live...happily? Maybe? Who the eff knows?
Really, nothing happened in this book. And yet, there were many characters and settings throughout the book. But none of them felt well-developed to me. They just go from one scene to the next to the next. Ugh.

World Building: 1/5
This is where the book just really loses me. The world-building is so incredibly murky. So this book is set in some sort of dystopian future where women are basically slaves. They have no rights, and they are pretty much being sold in auction's to the highest better to be a broodmare before they're put back up on the auction block. Supposedly, this happened when two men in power both fell for the same woman and because she was with both of them and that caused a war (or something...again, it made no sense) all women are made to suffer and be property. It just feels like a very flimsy premise to me. It's asking a huge suspension of disbelief.

Also, apparently in this future there is little to no food in the city and so people have to take pills that are basically meal supplements. This isn't ever really satisfactorily explained, it's just the way it is. It felt like the authors attempt to have some sort of interesting society, but it makes literally no sense. Aya talks throughout the book about how she's used to eating fresh food that she caught or picked outside the city and it doesn't make any sense to me that they couldn't send some people outside the city to go hunting and gathering especially when they are thinking that that is why the people outside the city are more fertile than others.

Another absurdity is the idea that we've gone backwards in technology in some ways, but not in others. For example, horses are used instead of cars for...reasons? But science is technologically advanced enough that detention centers which put up girls for auction can actually redistribute the weight a girl is carrying to make her more appealing to potential buyers and they can genetically modify people to suit their purposes. It's ridiculous.

One of my biggest issues with this book was the scale. What I mean by that is, if all of this is to be believed...what the heck is going on in the rest of the world (or he'll, even the country) that this is allowed to occur? What is the scale of this corruption? We only see a very limited setting. One city, and a couple small camps in the mountains outside the city. Unless I missed it, nothing is ever mentioned regarding any other places.

Also, the idea of the Drivers and their subculture is never explained. They are a group of people who go into the city to trade. They do not speak and people assume that for some reason they're all mute. But we come to find out that they are not mute; that they choose to not speak and make it seem like they are mute to everybody else and it's never explained why. At one point, Kiran says something about needing to protect all the girls in their camp, but never really explains how them being silent protects anybody.

One last thing. And that is...this book is pointless. Maybe it's because I like the idea (especially in this day and age) of good conquering evil. I like my dystopia to end with a regime being brought down. Call me basic, I freely admit it. Absolutely NO ONE in this book gets their comeuppance. Nothing is changed. Aya gets away from this awful place and goes back to the Driver camp and that's the end of the book. Now, I could maybe accept it if this was just a well-written survival story about a smart girl defeating the odds...but it wasn't. Like I said earlier, Aya is not nearly as smart as she thinks she is. She makes it out IN SPITE of the fact that she makes terrible fucking decisions. I found myself hating her by the end of the book. And that's not supposed to be the case. We are supposed to root for her.

The only thing that saved this book from a 1-star rating from me was that there was a kernel of an interesting story here. It COULD have been good.

I feel really bad that I didn't like this book. When I read Article 5 years ago when it first came out, I really enjoyed it. I kind of wonder if I went back now and reread it if I would feel the same. I will pick up more from this author in the future because I do believe that she has a real talent for creating compelling premises. Hopefully I will be able to connect with it better.