Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
Release Date: January 3rd 2012
Publisher: Harper Collins
Add it: Goodreads
Overall: ♥♥♥

Under the Never Sky tells the story of Aria and Perry. Aria has grown up in a place called the Reverie her whole life - a place in which you can look through an eyepiece called a "Smarteye" and basically think yourself anywhere and doing anything! Perry is an "outsider", he lives outside of the Reverie where there there is an "aether sky", cannibals and a whole lot more scary stuff!

I'd like to say, I didn't really view this as a dystopian, I thought it had more sci-fi elements rather than dystopian, but who am I to define genres :)

Firstly, I really appreciated the detail of Rossi's worldbuilding, I loved how much there was to know and I loved the mystery behind it all. However, I think it could have been executed better. For the first 50-100 pages I had no idea what was going on because I didn't understand why only 6000 people lived in the Reverie, why there were outsiders, why the Aether is there. Is it some sort of sick experiment gone wrong from the government? Were they trying to create the "perfect race" ala Hitler? So many questions but this is a series so I can wait patiently for answers :) My main problem was not knowing what any of the words meant for a long time (I know this sounds stupid but yeah..), like I had no idea what "Tides" were until Perry said it was his tribe and I had no idea what the Reverie was until further on in the story.

Another thing I appreciated was that this was in third person! Oh how I've missed reading in third person and I've come across alot more recently in YA (YAY!). What was interesting though, is that it was in third person from both Aria and Perry's perspective, which was great. I thought this was well-written and that Rossi distinguished both voices perfectly! I must say, I'm not the biggest fan of Aria, I thought she was a bit flat until the end which is where she really grew (and I liked her more) but I am a fan of Perry! I loved how Rossi didn't sugarcoat anything. Perry was a really complex character and learning about the different Senses was awesome! I want to know more about the Senses!!

I know your wondering "But, Taneika! Your only praising this book! Why did you only give it three stars?" Well, as I said above, I didn't understand what was going on for the longest time, but I guess this book was just missing that *spark* for me. I enjoyed it, but it did take me a while to get into and I just could not connect with anything the way I would've liked. I enjoyed learning about the world, but I couldn't connect with it, I enjoyed the characters and their flaws, but I couldn't connect with them and I enjoyed the book overall, I just couldn't connect with it.

I'm really disappointed, because I was SO incredibly excited to read this but I personally don't think it lived up to the hype. Now I just REALLY want to know where Book 2 will take us!!

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