mardi 14 juin 2022

Sunset rising – book 1 by S.M. McEachern

 

Published on December 6, 2013

454 pages

Back Cover

Deep inside a mountain in what used to be North America dwells the last of humanity. Welcome to the Biodome, where steel, rock and armed guards separate the privileged from the slaves ...

Born and raised as a slave in the Pit, Sunny O’Donnell has always accepted that she'll spend her life working to keep the Dome running and, if she lives long enough, willingly meet her end in the annual Cull when she reaches the age of thirty-five. This was the price her ancestors paid for their place inside the Biodome, the only haven from the global nuclear war of 2024.

But when Sunny’s mother is killed in the Cull, the hopeless reality of her existence becomes painfully clear. Bereft and disillusioned, she heads down a reckless path that sets off a riot in the Pit and leaves her accused of treason. Her only way of escaping public execution is to make a truce with her prison mate, who happens to be the heir to the dictatorship and hated enemy of the Pit.

Now caught between two worlds on the brink of war, Sunny must weigh her own survival against risking everything to save the Pit.

My review

I read it the first time when I did not have a blog nor a Facebook page, but with the plagiarism saga that is happening right now, I thought it would be a good time to write a review. It’s a trilogy, but it’s the first book that got me into the dystopian genre. If you like Hunger Games, I highly recommend you this book that you can still find on Amazon.

It did not hit me the first time, but the nuclear war happens two years from now and with what happens in the last three years, it gave me shivers thinking that this world might became real just by watching how humans are acting. The ecologist in me thought a lot while I was reading. The second thing that scared me, people were culled at 35 which means that if I was in the book, I would be death since a while. I hope we will never reach this point, but who knows how many people there will be on the planet in 200 years.

Sunny is a sweetheart who can also bite. Her dad and her best friend were the two most important people in her life before the events happens. I thought she was too innocent at the beginning and then I realized she is only 17. In this world, you were already married and a parent at this age, but I feel like she needed to grew up a little bit. Unfortunately, she had to meet Jake and all hell brake loose before she became a full adult.

Jake is also full of surprises. I thought he was teaming with his fiancé, but he only wanted to become president to change the world for the better. People who are living in the Pit does have a great life. They have low paying jobs and have to do what rich people does not want to do. Speaking about it, the only negative point I found about this novel are the details. The author put too many so the reader can believe what was happening, but I did not need so many descriptions about how to cleans clothes.

Some people said the story was predicable, I do not think so. The author surprises me a few times even though I read it a few years ago. The world building is amazing. I feel like it asked the author lots of energy and time to create it. Like I said, I have shivers thinking it might come true. I was not a fan of politic during my first reading, but it’s a part of the story I found interesting. The author do not spend lot of time on it, but just enough that I promise myself to do my research (on real website) next time I will vote. If you do not like romance, you might give it a chance because it’s not the main point. I did not like Sunny’s boyfriend at first and my opinion did not change after the last chapter. I prefer Jake since he escape with her and try his best to protect her.

Excerpts

When they signed the treaty, they never could have envisioned how much it would change over the centuries. Under the original terms, a person living in the Pit wasn’t obligated to join the Cull until the age of fifty. But as our population grew, the bourgeoisie, or " bourge ", as we called them, lowered our death sentence to thirty-five. (p.2)

I recognized many classics I had learned about in school but never read, like Pride and Prejudice and Paradise lost.  (p.85)

" The Cull happens every spring. Who’s going to name their daughter after that? Use Autumn. " (p.135)

"…Lockdowns might seem like a peaceful break while they’re happening, but the work keeps piling up, and we have to stay on top of it. " (p.199)

 My interview with the author 

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