*0.5

I originally gave this 3 stars when I read it in 2014 when I was thirteen. Now, in 2018 at nearly seventeen years old, I tried to re-read it and DNF'd it 16 pages in.

I definitely understand why I loved it years ago; I had just read Divergent and The Hunger Games so I was in that dystopian phase and only just started reading YA. But now I've read far better YA (far better dystopian, too) and could tell this wouldn't be my cup of tea.

In those sixteen pages there is far too much explanation of things that could have been more naturally inserted (mostly a lot of forced world building), a lot of telling instead of showing, majority of the characters were already annoying me, and I could see hints of future girl hate (which I've heard is very present in the sequel).

I wish I had've read the entire trilogy when I was thirteen because I would have loved it and at least had good memories of it. I would only recommend this to people just starting to read YA (ages 10-13 mainly) or people looking for a quick guilty pleasure read.