David Estes

Hands down, the best book I've read in a while!

a great adventure. a wonderful story. Characters so good and so true and so funny, you can't help but laugh and love right along with them.

Told from two POV, Adele and Tristan, you are thrust into a world very unlike our own.
And with each chapter, you experience more of the world AND more of our characters. Even the sidekicks of Cole, Tawni and Roc are fully flushed out and none are shallow or awful.

But no one in this story is perfect either. The characters are real, the world is scary but made less awful by the faith and love of good companions. I will definitely read all the books in this series!… (more)

What I Loved:

Wow. I was iffy about a Pinocchio retelling because it seemed like it would be a hard fairy tale to redo, but man that was a really good book.

First of all, I loved that the author chose Pinocchio to do a retelling for. It was very different but I loved the concept he created. I also really liked the dystopian/sci fi aspects of this book because most retellings tend to be fantasy. Also props to the author for not making romance a focal point in this story!

I really, really loved how the author incorporated the Pinocchio story into this story. The whole puppet part was VERY well done and I loved Pia's little friend who played the part of a certain little cricket. It had been a while since I've read/watched Pinocchio so I was worried I would forget the important parts but this story made them easy to pick up.

The characters were all very well developed especially considering you didn't get to see them often. I kind of liked how even though we didn't see a ton of characters, we still knew them. Or thought we knew them... There was a lot of mystery surrounding most of the characters which means you don't know who you can trust and I really liked that. It was a mystery book within a dystopia.

What I Didn't Like:

There wasn't much I didn't like in this book. My only complaint would be that some parts were too slow and others rushed by. Some consistency would have been nice but it didn't take away from the story.

Who I'd Recommend To:

This is great for those people who love fairy tale retellings but are getting tired of seeing the same fairy tales get all the attention. It's also great for all dystopia lovers and I would even say it's ok for a slightly younger teen as well. I even think that guys would like this book too since it's not overly girly or has anything to do with princess and true love. It's defensively a well rounded book for a large audience.… (more)

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchanged for an honest review.

I was pleasantly surprised while reading this book. When I read the summary it seemed like it would be a typically dystopia novel complete with the typical romance. I was glad to see how wrong I was.

The world that the author create is different from anything I’ve ever read in a book. I love that when the world ended everyone went under ground. That seems more realistic to me than some other worlds I’ve come across. I loved how the classes were portrayed as the three different levels. I also thought his writing was really nice. He wasn’t trying to be too formal but he also wasn’t stupid sounding. It was a perfect mix. The characters talked like normal teenagers talk. Nothing fancy, just plain old English. I probably love that more than I should but I find that a lot of authors try and sound young in their writing and they don’t pull it off. David Estes did an excellent job with this. He’s also really good at pacing. The whole book moved very smoothly and not too fast.

At first, I didn’t think I liked going back and forth from Tristan’s point of view and Adele’s. As I read further, I decided I liked it. I liked how we got to see where each group was in relation to each other. When they got close to finding each other I’d get excited and hope they were finally going to meet. Nothing they did was ever expected. Even the romance aspect of the book was really different. I found I really liked Adele’s strength and personality. She was a great female lead. I was especially impressed that the author was male and could pull that off. Tristan was great as well. He doesn’t like the idea of the classes and actually wants to do something about it. Nobody pushes him to do anything, he decides to do something all by himself.

I was really impressed with how this book turned out and I’m excited to read the next one!… (more)