I have a little secret to share with you guys. Are you listening? I am a little burnt out on dystopian. Shh! I know that is practically blasphemous to say around the YA blogosphere. Dont' get me wrong- I loved the Hunger Games, and plenty of other dystopians, but then it seemed like every other book was a dystopian and well, they all kind of started to look the same to me. And I got kind of bored of reading the same formula over and over again. BUT Pawn was getting such good early reviews from bloggers that I love and trust so I just had to give it a try. And I have to say, I am really glad that I did. Pawn didn't seem to be just like all the other dystopians out there, and it was really well executed. I was already a fan of Aimee Carter's Goddess Test series, and I am really impressed with the world building that she had in Pawn. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing and the world is awful and disgusting enough to have you completely invested in the series. I can't wait to see what is going to happen in the next book because something needs to be done! This blackcoat rebellion needs to start stirring the pot because I would hate to live in this world.

Kitty AKA fake Lila is just as disgusted with this world as I am. She is spunky, and defiant, but at the same time she is vulnerable and scared because she feels like she is completely powerless in this world. She has trouble reading so she had a reader for her big coming of age test. This test will determine what kind of life they will have. The scores are 2-7 and you need a 4 or above to have any kind of decent life. Because Kitties reader was slow she couldn't finish the test and she scored a 3. She is basically cast aside as a 2 or a 3. But that is just the start of her journey. She ends up a prisoner of the ruling family, pretending to be one of them.

There are so many political ploys in this book, it was hard to keep up with all of the lies. I was fascinated by the world that Aimee Carter created. The elsewhere disgusted me. I totally did not see that nightmare coming. The only thing that bugged me a little was that other than Kitty and Benji (and a little bit knox) I couldn't really love any of the characters. Everyone else in the family or book that we got to know was hiding something, lying about something. None of them seemed very trustworthy to me, so it was hard for me to get to know them. I felt skeptical of everything about them. I hope we get to know Celia and Knox a little better in the next book because I really want to like Knox.

I do love Kitty and Benji though. Benji's loyalty is impressive. You can tell that he really loves Kitty. There is no love triangle and no diversion to the romance. It's Benji and Kitty right from the start, even when they are apart from each other. The next book in the Blackcoat rebellion series looks like it is going to be even more action packed than this one. A lot of this book was setting up the players and the world. There was more fast paced action in the second half of the book, but the way the book ended I know the next book is going to be full of action and maybe even the start of a rebellion. I sure hope so at least! I am really interested in this series. I'm glad I gave Pawn a try. It was even better than I expected.