Published: 2013 (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Pages: 466
Blurb: The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.
It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.
My opinion: This was not as good as I thought it would be, especially after having heard so many good things about it. But here’s just another dystopian with a Special GirlTM who has to save everyone’s ass from a totalitarian government. How original.
The characters were flat and somewhat not likeable. There was a huge info dump in the first few chapters and it would have all been interesting, but I just didn’t understand it. All those different types of clairvoyants and infos about the political system. I’m sure if I would read those chapters again after having read the whole book, I still wouldn’t get it. I almost quit reading the book after said chapters, but I was told that it would be getting better. It did get better, but not less confusing.
Paige was annoying and sometimes I just didn’t understand her actions. The fact that the whole book is written from her perspective makes it only worse. She was just so emotionless most of the time and then showed emotions at points where I didn’t understand why she felt that way.
Warden was just… I don’t know how to put that into words, but I simply didn’t like him either. (SPOILER!) And then there’s this unhealthy relationship between him and Paige. Does no one else see how abusive and manipulative he is? I didn’t feel any chemistry between them and the fact that slavery is – in a way – romanticised here, is somewhat aweful. It almost made me shut the book when they kissed.
Then there’s Nick, a. k. a. the token Swede (and SPOILER: token gay guy). I mean, I think it’s great that there’s a little diversity here, but in that case it was just a device to produce more drama and that’s not good at all. The lack of diversity in this book… there was so much space for it. We’re talking about London here! There are so many different people from different countries and cultures. And why did he have to be Swedish? The only swedish thing about him is that he sometimes threw swedish words into his sentences. Who does that kind of thing? I see it so often in books, series and movies, that non-native-speaker charakters just randomly say words in their native language. As if to underline that they are different. Or do they just want to sound fancy? Most of the time it’s just stereotype words that everyone gets or simple words (like: yes, no, thank you, please, etc.). I don’t want to generalise this, but I don’t deliberately say Entschuldigung to people who don’t speak German. So what’s the point of doing this in books, besides making me want to puke? No one will fully understand what Nick is saying, unless they (like me) speak Swedish. The fact that I love Sweden and the language didn’t make him more likeable to me. He was still flat, like the others.
Jax is just an asshole, no more words needed.
Nashira could have been such a great female antagonist, but instead she was just the stereotypical evil bitch queen. Ugh.
And the rest of the characters? I have no idea who they are, because they’re so hard to distinguish. Using only numbers for maybe half of them doesn’t make it easier. That worked with Four in the Divergent series, but definitely not here.
Anyways, despite all my complaining, there’s still place for improvement and although the whole worldbuilding was quite confusing, there were parts that were quite interesting. I liked the flashbacks to when she worked for the criminals in London way better than the rest.
I will read book two, because I heard it’s better (which isn’t that hard) and I already ordered it before I read the first book. Yeah, silly me.
My rating: 2/5 Buttons
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