#BookReview: Poster Girl by Veronica Roth @HodderBooks

Hi everyone. Today I have a book review for you from an author familiar to me, but whom I no longer treat as an auto-buy writer. I’ve loved many books of Veronica Roth’s, but others have left me feeling let down. Here’s my review for a new book of this author’s, which I received as a Christmas present >>>

About the Book:

A fallen regime. A missing child. A chance at freedom.

By the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Divergent, Poster Girl is a haunting adult dystopian mystery that explores the expanding role of surveillance on society – an inescapable reality that we welcome all too easily.

WHAT’S RIGHT IS RIGHT. Sonya Kantor knows this slogan – she lived by it for most of her life. For decades, everyone in the Seattle-Portland megalopolis lived under it, as well as constant surveillance in the form of the Insight, an ocular implant that tracked every word and every action, rewarding or punishing by a rigid moral code set forth by the Delegation.

Then there was a revolution. The Delegation fell. Its most valuable members were locked in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city. And everyone else, now free from the Insight’s monitoring, went on with their lives.

Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has been imprisoned for ten years when an old enemy comes to her with a deal: find a missing girl who was stolen from her parents by the old regime, and earn her freedom. The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, crooked post-Delegation world where she finds herself digging deeper into the past – and her family’s dark secrets – than she ever wanted to.

My Review:

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Peels back the layers of the rotten onion slowly for the reader to taste bit by bit.

I had this book on my Christmas list, and Santa delivered! … So did the author 🙂

‘When she thinks of the time before, she thinks of the photo shoot.’ ... From this intriguing opening line, the reader is immersed fully into the life of main character Sonya Kantor. Once the darling of the Delegation, she is now imprisoned by the new regime with no way of ever getting out. Until an old enemy pays her a visit and offers a proposition.

This is one of the best dystopian novels I’ve read in a long time. And its message is totally relevant in today’s online, social-media and influencer dominated, information-gathering age. I love that this book is set after the dystopian regime, rather than as it’s happening, and the way it peels back the layers of the rotten onion slowly for the reader to taste bit by bit.

The prose is wonderful and so many lines stood out for me it’s difficult to choose just a few to show here >>>

‘Sonya’s mind often feels, to her, like clay hardened by the sun, left out too long to take a new shape.’

And …

‘The clouds covering the sun are hazy, like smoke swirling across a lit cigarette.’ … I love the imagery and observation in this line.

And …

‘Who cares about a single blade of grass when you’re standing in a field?’

And …

‘… the allure of comfort and safety is like a fishing hook through the lip, dragging a person through life.’

I could so easily have gone on and on with the pull quotes, as the author penned so many fantastic lines. The ending ties up all the threads and is well rounded and satisfying with a twist in the final quarter I did not see coming. Poster Girl by Veronica Roth gets a resounding five stars from me.

***

NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.

5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended.
4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.
3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.
2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.
1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.

For anyone interested, here are the Amazon links …

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08B8BDLW1/

US https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B8BDLW1/

I’d love to hear what you think of this review. Thanks for stopping by 🙂