First published: September 3rd, 2011
Source: Received from author
Format: Kindle
Goodreads Summary:
Spencer Nye can’t control the rage bubbling under her skin over the world around her. The trouble is, by the year 2102, the world has solved most of its great problems. Without hunger, war, greed, or even money, people obsess over the glamour of the Culture Industry and its mega-celebrity Idols, who vie for followers over the social networks of Connect.
But Spencer discovers there is plenty to fix within the Idols’ competition for more popularity. She becomes a diehard and promises to do anything to help her Idol, a dreamy movie star named Cleary Mintz, bring his vision of hope and purpose to the world. When she stumbles onto a threat against his life, she’ll have to fight harder than she ever thought possible or lose the man who means more to her than any other.
Suspense, the first book in a dystopian trilogy, contains 76,000 words and is recommended for ages 16 and up because of depictions of violence and some sexual themes.
My Rating: 2.5 / 5
First thoughts:
While I'm completely in love with the idea of a story involving this kind of dystopian society and even though I read really positive reviews about Suspense, it wasn't the right story for me in the end. I would have preferred a little more romance and a little less action, but at the same time I'm interested in finding out what will happen in this world.
More detailed:
The idea of Suspense sounds really special and is a wonderful basis for a great novel. It's already visible today how many people are focusing on social networks and it's easy to imagine that one day people would depend on them too much. This also makes the idea of Idols quite realistic.
Jason Letts has outlined this world intriguingly, but at the same time it took a long time for me to understand the world and how it became the way it is. Only towards the end we are given more detailed explanations about how everything changed and that made it a little bit hard for me to relate to the characters throughout most of the novel.
As I said before I also would have loved some more romantic moments but this is just a very subjective / personal opinion. I have a hard time keeping my interest in a book that puts a main focus on action scenes instead of relationships. I know that for a lot of people this is completely different, so keep in mind that my rating is mostly based on this fact.
Other than that, Suspense is well written and easy to read. I'm sure that the questions I still have are going to be answered in the sequels and I still am very fond of the idea of this dystopian world. All in all, I think people who prefer action-packed novels with a very detailed style of writing could really like this story and should give this a chance.
Have you read Suspense? What did you think about it?
Do you plan to read it?
Carina
