Review: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Title: Under the Never Sky
Author: Veronica Rossi
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publish Date: January 3, 2012
Source: Library

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You're a young adult fiction fan.
• You're a dystopian fan.
• You're a fan of character driven stories.

What's the Story?: 

From Goodreads.com: "Since she'd been on the outside, she'd survived an Aether storm, she'd had a knife held to her throat, and she'd seen men murdered. This was worse.

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland - known as The Death Shop - are slim. If the cannibals don't get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She's been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He's wild - a savage - and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile - everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria's help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky."

My Two Cents:

I had heard some good things about this book but this was not my favorite.

The story itself was very interesting. You have two people from two very different places who are trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle for a couple different things. I liked that the story kept me reading in order to figure out what was going on in Aria and Perry's world.

I liked the characters. This whole story was much more character driven than anything else. Aria is a really awesome character. When she first leaves Reverie, she's sort of naive. She is afraid of everything and Perry kind of helps her get acclimated. They make a good team. I loved that we got to see a transformation of Aria through the book. By the end of the book, she's turned out to be a really strong character.

Here's where the book fell flat for me. One of the things that I love in dystopian books is good world building. I love when you can really feel like what it must be like to be in the book's world. In this book, you're sort of thrown into the deep end and it was just really confusing. I couldn't exactly figure out what was going on. I spent the first half of the book wanting to know more about the world. You do eventually get a little bit of towards the end when Aria has the big revelation about her origin and what's going on.

I did like some of the little bit of technology that we get to see in the book. The 'Smarteyes' which are really cool and definitely creative. I also liked the idea of the Realms. I also thought it was interesting about how people in this brave new world are more into genetic engineering than just regular ol' procreation.

Bottom line: This is a dystopian for the character lover!