The Apollo Illusion by Shari Lopatin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes the hardest part of reviewing a book is telling the prospective reader that their impressions of the first quarter of a book should not be the expectation they should have by the end.

For me, and with little more to go on other than the feeling like I was reading another The Giver mixed with an impression that this was another 1984 in spirit, my expectations led me to believe that scales would fall from eyes. And they do. But also because this is a YA dystopia with a lot of the feel of Divergent, we can also expect some resistance action. And we do.

But then, the difficulties of leaving home eventually lands us in a very futuristic world and I'm now sitting upright and enjoying the ride. The home of Apollo is not what it seems at all, and this particular quest of discovery makes the rest of the book a lot more enjoyable. For me. After all, I've read perhaps too many of these to get really surprised anymore. :)

Add a bit of Twelve Monkeys, hacker collectives, and a very decently-built world that has a lot more to say than I usually see in these kinds of novels, and the novel fairly hops along with all it's missing people, the despair of whole populaces, and a completely disconnected and probably schizophrenic society.

In other words, it's a pretty realistic description of our world. :)

So, all told, I was underwhelmed at first and excited for the rest. This is a very decent read.

View all my reviews