Customer Reviews

Candor

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Candor was a wonderful debut from author Pam Bachorz! Filled with suspense, secrets, and forbidden romance, Candor grabbed my attention right from the first chapter!

From the first time I heard about Candor, I was intrigued by the plot. Candor is The Stepford Wives taken to a whole new level! I could definitely see Candor being offered a movie deal in the future. It has all the elements of an amazing big screen hit! I also loved the ideas and questions that Candor raises about conformity and family relations. This novel seems to have a healthy balance of popular appeal as well as deeper meaning.

I'm always a little uncertain when I see books that have a main character that is not the same gender as the author. Perhaps it is unfair of me, but I tend to believe that when it comes to characters, a woman writing a male's point of view simply isn't believeable. Perhaps, that goes more for men writing a female's POV or maybe Pam Bachorz has a gift for understanding the minds of men, but I definitely saw Oscar as realistic.

The romance between Oscar and Nia was well written and fit the plot perfectly. Nia and Oscar are both such perfectly flawed characters - their relationship had just the right amount of passion and insecurity.

I loved this book and flew through it in a day. Right at the start, the author pulls you right in and doesn't let go until the end. I have to admit that I am a Stepford Wives fan, so that made me interested in the book from reading the jacket - but if you're not, don't let that stop you from getting it. It's fun for anyone who's up for a little rebellion, or doesn't want to have Martha Stewart organizing their closets. Very inventive, very good.

Candor is a book that there was a lot of early buzz about. All over the the blogs and twitter there it was talk of this amazing new book. It then became a book that I had to have. I needed to learn more about this town and kind of person who would brainwash his own son just to have the perfect society. Reading the book I kept waiting for that WOW factor. The moment which would seal my love for Candor so that I could join the hordes in proclaiming its brilliance.

However, that was never to be. At least not for me. I really like the premise and the writing of this novel but I didn't like any of the characters. The adults were underdeveloped and you never really learned all that you wanted to about the origins of Candor. And Oscar. Well he was just plain annoying. I was expecting someone sympathetic. Someone who wanted to fight the good fight, that last bastion of freedom in a place where your every thought is programmed. But Ocsar isn't any of those things. He is selfish and greedy and really isn't all that much better than the father who created a town filled with brainwashed kids.

I really wanted to rave about this book but I just can't. I didn't see very much in the book to like. But that said I didn't hate it. I was intrigued and I kept reading to see how it all might pan out. I was shocked by the ending. It wasn't one that I had expected and so was a nice twist. So while I am not going to be jumping on the Candor bandwagon anytime soon I will be watching Pam Bachorz because I do want to see what she comes up with next. Bachorz is gifted at world building even if I didn't always like the world that I was in while reading her words. She's a gifted story teller and I hope that I can click better with her next book then I did with this one

No paranormal elements, which normally isn't my thing, but this is enjoyable. The pacing is slow, but somehow it works for Candor.

Oscar's like a spy in enemy territory, always trying to fit in, with his cover always at risk. This makes for constant tension throughout the book. He has to watch every move he makes, every word that comes out of his mouth. It's tedious work, but he does it well. I'd be exhausted!

Oh, and not only are the kids insanely perfect and zombie-clone-like, but the parents are brainwashed too. And they're aware of the mind wipe going on in the town! Oscar has no allies. Just himself and...and the new kids that move in - but he quickly 'saves' them by moving them out. That is way too lonely a life. I would have gone nuts or escaped.

Enter Nia. Oscar's world is turned upside down.

It's a boy meets girl story. The whole brainwashed town with one rebel is a cool premise. The writing is good. I was on the fence as to whether or not I liked this until the end.

The bitter-sweet end.

If there was a sequel, I would have finished Candor with excitement and anticipation. Since I can find nothing on a possible sequel, I'm left rather depressed. Poor me.

It's a good read, but can't say I loved it. Again, without a sequel, the end really brought me down. This kid sacrifices a lot for the sake of others and in the end... It's not that it didn't make sense or isn't believable but... Okay, trying not to spoil anything but the end is not a completely happy one.

I know a lot of readers like this type of ending but I'm a big wimp. I admit it. I like my happy endings.

Even besides the super cool (and creepy) premise, this story has a lot going for it.

The male main character was believably written, and was interesting to read about. All the characters were distinct and well written, an extra hard feat given how most of them have been brainwashed into similar mindsets. The setting was so perfect, because you could really picture any of those neighborhoods with the houses that all look alike being this way. Seriously, I drove by one of these neighborhoods the other day, and I just wondered.

I also couldn't quite guess how this book would end, and I love when that happens. It surprised me more than once, and kept me reading, because I had to know! My heart was pounding through the entirety of the last fifty pages or so. A creepy undercurrent made the whole book so tense. Oscar's dad is such a crazy man. And the idea of the subliminal messages is just believable enough that I kind of wanted to plug my ears.

The romance was really nice, although my one main dislike was how quickly it went from zero to `I love you'. I felt like I'd missed something, but that's a little of my own personal cynicism leaking through. Once I got past that, though, I thought it was wonderful.

The number one best thing about this book: my boyfriend, a not-very-avid reader, read it--and liked it.

~review by YA Highway, yahighway (dot) com

Candor is a planned community, so well-planned that no one's thoughts are their own. Think perfectly behaved teenagers who don't long for junk food or romance or basically anything that would get in the way of acceptance into an Ivy League school. This YA novel is told from the point of view of the town's visionary founder's son Oscar, the only one who has figured out a way to get around the audio subliminal messages (and occasionally profit from them). Everything in Oscar's life is programmed, just as it is for every other Candor teen, and that's okay since he's found a way to scam the system. Only it's lonely at the top. Enter Nia. Oscar falls hard for her and what she represents: the rebel artist and the one person he doesn't want to see change. Expect a creepy earworm of a book, with a perfectly twisted ending. I look forward to reading more from Pam Bachorz!

Candor is the name of the town Oscar's dad created after his brother died and mother left. It's a town where Messages control the citizens. Where rich parents bring there messed up kids to get fixed. --Stepford Wives meet Young Adult. And Oscar is the town's shinning example of perfection. Except he has a secret. He knows all about the Messages and he works hard to keep them from effecting his brain. He also, for a price, he helps other teens escape from Candor. Then Nia comes along. At first he thinks he'll help her escape, making some easy money. Then as he gets to know her and likes her and he wants to keep her in the town for himself. Things eventually blow up and Oscar must decided whether to risk exposer (which would mean being sent to the "listening room") and save Nia by helping her escape or keeping her and letting them change her forever.

Intriged??? I was too. And I do recommend reading this book. It was quick and fairly pleasant...BUT don't get your hopes too high. The romance is too light. For example, whenever they kiss it was kind of like "and she kissed me" and that was it. The romance was laking, maybe b/c it was from Oscar's POV, and I never got the strong feeling that the characters were really in love. In the middle it got a little slow, repetetive (we already know about the Messages) and then came the end. The make or break of this story. It was a bitter sweet ending (which I usually expect from dystopian type books but not YA). I don't mind bitter sweet but it doesn't fit well on a book that's been leaning towards mediocre the whole was through.

I feel like that was harash. There is a plus side. It was a quick read and the concept was very interesting. I loved the style of writing and the world the author created. It had some funny moments too. Overall, read this book but I wouldn't buy it. Check it out from the library. And keep in mind, there were so many other great reviews...I could be the anomaly of the group. This book wasn't great for me but I think in the future we will see greatness from Pam Bachorz. This just wasn't her homerun hit.

The town where CANDOR is set was eerily reminiscent of my in-laws' gated community in Florida, and perhaps that's a hallmark of the very best dystopian fiction. It paints a troubling future world that has some frightening parallels with our own. Bachorz's debut novel is a compelling one, featuring a model community of the future in which subliminal messages help to create "perfect" citizens. Not fitting in is not an option, and when a couple kids challenge that norm, there are grave consequences. I'm not going to say more for fear of introducing spoilers, but I will say this... the ending was a doozy.

Note for teachers & librarians: this book has some references that make it more suitable for high school than middle school. It will make an amazing literature circles or book club selection for teens.

Sci-fi is not really my thing; I can't even name more than 10 sci-fi books I've read, not including this one, off the top of head. Yet, I found myself wanting to read this one because of the unique premise and the fangirly reviews I had read. Luckily, I enjoyed this book quite a lot, but not as much as some others.

I wasn't completely drawn in to the book until about a quarter of the way through, mostly because I wasn't sure where the heck the book was going. I knew Oscar wanted to help Nia, but other than that I didn't see many places the book could be headed. And it didn't help that it took forever for the real conflict to begin. However, once the real big problems began, I was hooked. Some of the things I wanted to happen happened, so it was a bit predictable in that sense, but there were plenty of twists and turns to make things exciting. I can't say why things were so exciting because that would be much too spoilery, but I will say that all the mistakes and seemingly odd/bad choices people made brought about some major action.

Because the majority of the characters are all robotic and perfect, it makes sense that they seem flat, especially in the beginning. However, many of them make surprising decisions and reveal things about themselves that allow them to be much deeper. Oscar in particular seems like a typical rebel who tries to secretly beat the system, but his feelings about his mother make his actions make much more sense, in turn developing his character. If there's one thing I hate about Oscar, though, is that he fell in "love" with Nia way too fast. So fast that I didn't believe his feelings much at all.

The messages and how they work are explained in the novel, but I wish that more of their effects were explained. I felt that there was much more to them than I was told, and I had a bunch of questions about what the parents think of the messages, how Oscar's dad makes them all work, etc. The book is narrated by Oscar, so obviously if he didn't know anything more, I wasn't going to know any more either, but I still have plenty of questions.

And I must mention that I LOVED the ending. Some people will probably hate the ending, but it was so unexpected and wonderful.

I really enjoyed this book.. it's something that is plausible with technology today, which is really freaky if you think about it. I loved the characters and really hope a sequel is written.. there is still so much to know!