Reckoning – a review

This was my tbr jar pick for March (leave me and my massively behind reviews alone) and without that I don’t know if or when I would’ve finally picked this book up. I got it from The Works in about 2016 and it’s been languishing on my shelves ever since. A YA dystopian set in a UK where war has ravaged the lands and the King who stopped the war is revered. But of course things aren’t as they seem.

This book? It’s just fine unfortunately. It’s a perfectly fine YA dystopian. I didn’t dislike it, don’t get me wrong. I was interested in the story and where it was going. I wanted to know how they would discover the information and how they would escape. But it was also pretty predictable.

This is a very well fleshed out blueprint of a standard dystopian, and I do think that the actual target audience would enjoy it. The cheesiness that is present wouldn’t be quite so grating for them, and they would be able to relate to the characters. And I love that it’s in the UK rather than the US! So that’s a big bonus!

I have, however, since unhauled this book and the second one in the trilogy without reading it. The final nail in the coffin for me was a line in book 2’s synopsis “the girl with the silver streak in her hair”. I managed to mostly forget about that whilst reading, but our main character, called Silver, does indeed have a silver streak in her hair. It was what tipped me over the edge, just too cheesy and too young for me! So it’s gone now. Hopefully someone in the right age bracket will enjoy it!

On my CAWPILE spreadsheet I rated this book:

Characters: 6

Atmosphere: 6

Writing: 6

Plot: 6

Intrigue: 7

Logic: 7

Enjoyment: 7

Which gave me an average of 6.43 which is the higher end of the 3 star bracket. Not atrocious but not amazing, pretty much like this book.

Despite this being a “cheesy” YA dystopian book there are still trigger warnings. Not many, but I would recommend heeding them.

Highlight here for the trigger warnings: sexual assault (heavily implied), violence, abuse

Let me know if you’ve read this series and how you feel about reading YA as an adult (or MG as a teen if you’re not an adult yet!)