This book was clearly inspired by the Hunger Games, but is a poor imitation. The Katniss character (an unusually accomplished fighter entering a warrior situation that she shouldn't survive, with an absent father and a messed up, emotionally absent mother, living in a nation of districts with dystopian government figures out to kill her) is a two dimensional shadow with no emotional connection for the reader. Her romantic interest in this book is styled and *named* after Gale Hawthorne. (Seriously? Why so obvious?) Oh, and with no prior sexual history, education or experience, she showers together with him. That was not credible. Confident individuals who are Innocents don't jump from zero to sixty inside of ten minutes (specified in the story) during their first encounter.
Unfortunately, the author also creates so much jargon vocabulary that is so far removed from modern English that a glossary is *needed* and even after reading the book and glossary I was still not sure what some of those terms had meant. The terms weren't explained in the story, they weren't intuitive and they weren't memorable. The districts are called "Fates". Why? The President is called "the Clarity". Why?? The District leaders are called "The _____[Name of District] (That one's reasonable) but the leader's spouse is called "The Fated ___[Name of District] (huh??) It gets way more complex than that and does not get easier as the book goes on. I hung in there, expecting it to improve, but it didn't. It looks like the author got caught up in creating her own system and neglected to get feedback from test readers.
The author meant well. She is clearly smart and insightful. She wrote some very quotable and clever lines. The author made a valiant effort to write a good book. As a whole, it fell far short.
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