2.5 stars. Final thoughts: Uhhh, what kind of ending was that?
Obviously, for me, the ending was what threw me right off. But I should start from the beginning, shouldn't I?
Aria, after putting one of the officer's son in danger, is exiled from the safe and contentment of her home of Reverie. She is thrown out on the wasteland - also known as The Death Shop - where cannibal tribes roam through the desert and Aether storms come out of the whim.
And then she meets Perry, & he decides for a partnership: "If you help me find my brother, I will take you back to Reverie headquarters."
Or something like that.
I admit, the only reason I picked up this book was because of the hype. It wasn't as if I was seeing it everywhere; the cover was gorgeous and mostly everyone on my friend's list had read it so I was like what the hey maybe i should give it a try.
And I knew that Rossi's UTNS would be either a hit or miss for me.
It was a miss, sadly.
Let me start off by telling the good points: I liked how Perry and Aria didn't magically fall in love with each other. That's probably the only prospect of this book that I really liked and was willing to give a good rating for.
And the other thing I was kind of okay with was the story. I mean, it's nothing new; it's very stereotypical in forms of YA literature. Someone dear to heroine gets kidnapped --> heroine finds help --> goes on a journey to find loved one --> trials & tribulations --> love expressed --> etcetera.
So the story in Under the Never Sky wasn't exactly creative. I mean, if you look at it, it really is just a mish-map of all these old, uncreative, unoriginal ideas combined into one.
The things that urked me about this novel were: The setting. I, personally, thought it was kind of unimaginative. Again, I think if someone really tried, they could think of something like: 'Oh, I'll make a wasteland and then there's this little sci-fi dome thingy where all the cool people live! Oh oh, and then the waste land has cannibals and these weird wind storms that I'll call ... Aether storms!' So, yeah, Blargh. I didn't think the idea was developed enough, especially since we didn't get an insight of the technology of Reverie, since it almost just started out by Aria's exile. The beginning of the book also felt very out of place to me. I wish Rossi could've given us more back-up info on the tech-stuff in Reverie, the structure of it, its government, et. It would've seemed more plausible, then. Also, when Aria's BFF died, I also couldn't sympathize with her because I had NO IDEA of the relationship they had. It wasn't explained.
I'll end it here. I think I've bored you enough.
Conclusion: Weird opening scene. Horrible ending: too rushed, not a very decent attempt at a cliffhanger. Romance was kind of good impressive? World-building wasn't developed enough.
Recommended: I can't make myself request this book to anyone, really. Especially to those who enjoy YA.