If you're anything like me, you love the stylings of a well written Young Adult novel. And if you're anything like me, the continuous monotony of novels trying to meet either the 'tragic realistic fiction love story' criteria of A Fault In Our Stars or reach the same blockbuster success of The Hunger Games by going the exact same dystopian route: overly complicated rituals involving children, has become a thorn in your side and you don't even bother heading into the teen section of your local bookstore. I haven't turned down that aisle at Barnes and Noble since Twilight came out and I realized every cover was black or dark blue and had something to do with the supernatural. Since The Hunger Games, its the same schtick of trying to match the newest popular novel and hoping to get a decent return on a movie deal. It's mind numbing, and reading the same stories can get old especially when the stories that could be told are so much better than the romance forced down preteen girls' throats.
Then I caught wind of the super awesome CW show (don't judge me) The 100. I'd seen a bit about it here and there, and my best friend had been on my case to watch it for months. Finally, one night I didn't have much to do so I decided to invest a few hours into a new show on Netflix. I have never been happier with a netflix suggestion to date.
But this isn't a review of the show (as amazing as it is, and as much as I think every one should be watching it). No, I learned soon after getting up to date on the show that it was based on a novel, on a young adult novel at that. While yes, a dystopian romance at its core (gotta make money some how) its so much more than that. It's a real show of classist based differences and the trials a person has to go through to survive. How far a person is willing to go to survive.
While the show touches on the classism and cost of survival on your soul a lot more than the novel- you can still see the basics there. The depths people can care about each other, the choices people will make for the ones they love, and sure there's a touch of "lord of the flies" going on at first but who doesn't think some classical anarchy isn't well deserved in the world Morgan describes?
In all honesty I recommend the book AND the show. They excel where the other fails, and they build an image of the characters that is really refreshing in a world of "bad ass heroines and their weak side kick boyfriends"
I give the book 3.5 stars. Had I not watched the show, and seen how much more could have been done with the characters, I would have given it a higher rating. That said, I see where the characters could have gone, and it becomes obvious Kass Morgan didn't want to rock the boat too much in a book that really was more of just 'coat tails' material than original ideas. Here's hoping the sequel, Day 21, and the final in the trilogy (the not yet released) Homecoming go further.
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