Saturday, July 11, 2015

DNF Review: Grid Seekers by Logan Byrne

First, thanks to Xpresso Book Tours for allowing me to read a copy of this book.  I normally don't review my DNFs, but this one might be of interest to some people still, so I thought I'd go ahead and do a quick review. 

The story is about a future where being plugged in to the big "Internet" or in this book, WorldNet, is a big part of life.  Anyone can use it, and do anything they want there, even things they may never get to do, like go to a beach, or visit another country.  But it isn't free, or cheap.  However, every year there is a lottery.  And people who are picked from the lottery compete to find some kind of treasure on a scavenger hunt type of competition.  Whoever wins will be rich beyond their wildest dreams.  Those that lose may go to jail, or other similarly unpleasant things.  In the past the competition was more violent, in that the contestants could and would kill each other.  The main character is Alexia, and she lives in one of the 6 megacities that are left in American, the New York City one.  While getting chosen would be a possibility of a better life, of course there are the other bad things if you don't win.  As you can guess, Alexia is chosen. 

I didn't make it any farther.  As I read it was just too much exactly like The Hunger Games for me.  I just couldn't read on without constantly feeling that way. Even though this is a more modern world than in HG, Alexia still lives just with her mother and a younger sister.  And she tries to protect them.  And everyone sits and watches the night that they do the drawing.  And Alexia is a really tough girl, she works to help her family, doesn't go to school.  It was just too similar for me.  However I know some people enjoy reading the same type of story, and so those who do, and if they liked HG, then they will enjoy this.  To me there just wasn't enough originality to make it something I wanted to spend time on reading when there are so many new stories out there waiting to be read.