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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Unwanteds by Lisa McMann


 This Harry Potter wanna-be book has a promising start with Alex Stowe being declared an Unwanted on Purge Day. Unlike his twin brother who is a Wanted, Alex has shown signs of creativity which is not tolerated in the land of Quill. He is sent off to be killed with the other Unwanteds where he meets a magician who has other plans for the Unwanteds.

I guess I liked the start of the book before it started going downhill for me. The characters in this book don’t change much, except maybe Samheed,which made it difficult for me to get pulled into the story. The plot isn’t well-written and feels rushed. I also thought the adults were preachy. I couldn’t understand why Aaron would become a cold-blooded murderer and I don’t think the parents would have been so callous toward their own flesh-and-blood. The kids kill their parents and the parents kill their kids in a battle at the end. Only one parent has his head on straight. There isn’t much depth to this book. It is also supposed to be a dystopian society but it doesn’t make sense. In 50 years people wouldn’t fall astray from their human-side that quickly and the magic isn’t fully explained. Mr. Today says he could have used a single word to stop Justine but never did. Huh? Why not? Because he wanted everyone to live in fear and innocent children be separated from their parents? This story had too many unanswered questions for me.
I do think some students will really like this book. On Goodreads.com 300 people gave it 4 to 5 stars. I struggled with the writing in this one.

Reading Level 3.7
:-):-) 2 out 5 Smileys

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