Review: Slated by Teri Terry

Title: Slated
Author: Teri Terry
Edition: Orchard Books, 2012

Rating: ★★

Review

First things first, this review is going to be hard to write. One of my favourite things about reading is the fact that I can share all my favourite books with my friends. And get recommendations in return. It's great when you love their books as much as they do (commence communal fan-girling). But when you don't...it's awkward and hard to admit. On that note: I'm SO SORRY AMY.

Let me start with how big this book is. It's 440 pages, a good 100 pages more than what I normally pick up, but I really think it could have been cut down by at least a third. So many of the scenes felt either super dragged out or unnecessary all together. 

Continuing on a similar point, there's at least one instance where two characters (Mac and Aiden, for example) could be merged together, reducing the number of characters as well as giving them a bit more purpose, something a lot of them seemed to lack. I felt like a lot of the side characters all had one role, a lot of them teeny tiny little jobs and that was it; they just kind of hung around awkwardly after they'd played their part (Phoebe, for example).

Having said that, even some of the main characters felt a little awkward and unfocussed. Most obviously for me was Kyla's mum and dad. At the beginning, it was Dad who was sympathetic and understanding, and Mum was labelled 'Dragon' (cliche much?) but by the end, Dad was angry, and ridiculously suspicious of someone who was supposed to be his daughter and Mum was kind, and thoughtful, protecting Kyla as best she could. This could simply be character development but it read an awful lot like Terry just didn't know which parent was the good cop and which was the bad. 

Those are the worst things I felt about this book but my frustration with this novel started with the first few chapters. For some reason, and I've tried to figure out that reason, Terry has used contractions in a strange and inconsistent kind of way. Most of the time, they were used ('wasn't', 'didn't', 'I'm') but the exception seemed to be 'it's'. Almost every time it came up it was 'it is'. To begin with I got over it, thinking it might just be a feature of Slated speech. But then Slateds were using every other contraction, and non-Slateds were saying 'it is' too. Then I considered that maybe it was just part of Terry's writing style, until one or two 'it's' made their way in. No matter the reasoning behind it, it frustrated me to no end. I didn't understand why it wasn't contracted and it was clunky to read, stinted the flow and generally just got on my nerves. 

On a more positive note, though, the book gained a star because the idea intrigued me and as dystopian societies go, it's fresh and new. I just think it could have been done better. If the chapters and characters were cut down it would have increased the tension, the mystery, the intrigue and generally made the reading experience much more enjoyable. 

I think it's needless to say that I'm not going to continue with the series. It didn't grab me, I struggled through this one, and there's other books I'm more interested in reading.