paola_fi
12/18/2014
Even though the story got a bit thin towards the end, I still liked this book very much. At first I thought this is another action-packed dystopian story with secret societies, violence, and totalitarian regime. However, towards the end religion became increasingly important, and it turned out that the cult Hannah was born into was just another religious group (with a lot of political power).
What made this book interesting was the idea of giving the criminals an artificial skin colour and releasing them to the society to fend for themselves, combined with a very patronizing society. The author could have spent more time dwelling on both of these issues: now the Chromes had very little to do with each other (except for Kayla/Hannah friendship). It would have been interesting to read more about their survival - after all, some of them did survive their senteces. Also, the religious transformation Hannah had was speeded up: I found it a bit implausible.
Even with the shortcomings, my overall rating is four stars: for feminism, GLTBQI rights, an interesting take on religion, and a plausible vision of what a society could be like in the future. Also, this is a story that handles religion also in a very positive way, which is still really quite rare in speculative fiction.
(Roll-Your Own Reading Challenge 2014: Women of Genre Fiction)