Title: The Young World
Author: Chris Weitz
Series: The Young World Trilogy #!
Genre: YA Dystopian
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Release Date: July 29th 2014
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source: eARC received by publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
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After a mysterious Sickness wipes out the rest of the population, the young survivors assemble into tightly run tribes. Jefferson, the reluctant leader of the Washington Square tribe, and Donna, the girl he's secretly in love with, have carved out a precarious existence among the chaos. But when another tribe member discovers a clue that may hold the cure to the Sickness, five teens set out on a life-altering road trip to save humankind.
The tribe exchanges gunfire with enemy gangs, escapes cults and militias, braves the wilds of the subway and Central Park...and discovers truths they could never have imagined.
I always try to be diplomatic when I write reviews. I do not like to rant about a book because I feel sympathy for the time and effort that went into the making of a book. But sometimes you read a book that elicits so much negative emotion from you that you have no choice but to make the whole review negative. And I am sad to say that The Young World was one of worst books I have read in a very long time.
I will start with the characters. There were 2 POVs in this book, one was Donna and the other was Jefferson. I will start with Donna first. She was written the way a grown man THINKS a young teenage girl would talk. I have never heard the words like and um written that many times while one person is talking. I got so frustrated with her character and the way she was written and that I usually skimmed her parts because I was so annoyed. Jefferson was not much better. Although he sounded like a normal human being with brain cells when he talked, he still was one of the most boring character I have ever read. I didn't feel much emotion from him while reading. We know that he was in love with Donna for most of the book, yet we never really felt it from him. He just told us, which was not the best reading experience. Another aspect of Jefferson's character that I felt was wrong was the fact that although he loved Donna and said he would wait for her, he went and slept with another girl just for the hell of it. I felt like this was so out of character for him.
The story. I felt like it was done many many times over, and honestly done way better. All the adults disappeared and the kids are in charge? yup been there done that. The world was not very well done and I honestly skimmed the last 50% of the book because I was either bored or couldn't care less about the characters and what they were going through. Also, there was a big reveal at the end, and although that was my motivation for reading until the end, I felt gypped. I got no real answers and I left with more questions than what I started.
The Young World was high on my TBR list because I thought it would bring something new and exciting to a genre that's been done over and over again, But sadly it was lackluster at best and I was not a fan.
