Summer time is definitely the time when most of us pick up a book and fall in love with reading again, after a long and stressful year with little time to take a break to read. I do read throughout the year but they tend to be super easy romance stories that take me a day or two to read and there isn’t much storyline them. I love reading these books when I’m at school as they give be a bit of a break from having to really work and read difficult texts. However, In the summer I like something a little bit more challenging.
Recently I picked up the book ‘Slated’ by Teri Terry (isn’t that such a great name?) from the Young Adults selection in my local Waterstones after many of my friends saying I had just to read it. As it’s from the YA section it isn’t a very difficult read and I did get through it quite quickly but the storyline was definitely different from my usual soppy romances. I won’t go into too much detail as you may want to read it but I’ll just give you a general idea of what it is about. It begins with a young girl being given to a new family after she has been ‘slated’ – her mind wiped so she has no previous memories – and she is set to start a new life with this family. They are told that they have been slated as they were criminals and this is their second chance in life however things begin to happen and Kyla (the main character) isn’t sure they have been told the whole truth.
I really love these kinds of dystopia novels, the type that takes this world and changes it into something uncomfortable – something that we can never image the world turning into. I think that this book makes you think a lot about today’s society and you can definitely see how the world can be changed into what it has become in this book. I love that it is set in London and around and there were some references to the M25 which I have been stuck on many a time for a few hours at a time.
I feel that there aren’t many characters in this book that you can connect or relate with as Kyla herself feels quite isolated and separate from the other kids at school and her family, however, you do start to route for some of them. Kyla is my age and although I am obviously quite different as still have all my memories, her struggles with things are very similar to what teens go through at school and in general life.
I really enjoyed reading this book and can't wait to go and get the next in the series. There are three in the series and I am sure that I will have finished them all by the time the summer has finished! Have you read any in this series? What is your favourite genre to read?
I really enjoyed reading this book and can't wait to go and get the next in the series. There are three in the series and I am sure that I will have finished them all by the time the summer has finished! Have you read any in this series? What is your favourite genre to read?
