Thursday 17 September 2015

True Calling by Siobhan Davis.

True Calling Review by Siobhan Davis
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Yo Guys!
Joe here with a new review for you all! :D

Sorry about being quiet, I’ve been really really busy with Uni studies and such (aiming for a first haha!)

Today I will be reviewing a book called ‘True Calling’ by Siobhan Davis.
Here’s some of the blurb to to get you intrigued:
Planet Novo, nestled in space twelve hundred miles above the surface of the Earth, is the new home of 17-year-old Cadet Ariana Skyee. Confused by the government-sanctioned memory erase and distressed at her impending forced marriage and motherhood, Ariana’s plans for the future are thrown into complete disarray.
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I was given an e-book copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Slight Spoilers and Swearing

This was not my book. It really wasn’t.
There were quite a few things in this book that didn’t sit right with me.

When Earth started to die, a new government decided to send humans onto an artificial planet called Novo, that they created twelve hundred miles above Earth. Ariana lives with her family and many other humans who were selected and moved to Novo; humans were selected to live on Novo by their medical records, their criminal records and their work/school records. So if you were a convict or had a critical medical condition, you would’ve had to stay on Earth’s destructed remains.
Ariana lives a ‘normal’ life; she goes to school, has friends, a family that loves her; but this all changes when she starts dreaming of a strange man named Zane; her father goes missing and the hottest guy in the school starts showing an interest in Ariana.

Okay, so, I have so many little queries with this story and overall I just didn’t enjoy it.
I really wasn’t impressed by the idea of taking young people and setting them into arranged marriages when they turn 17/18. It has a good idea for a story, but the way the author wrote it made it a bit silly and not really that tense.

The fact that humanity chose to save only a small percentage of human kind based on their clean records, good grades and good health; seems very elitist.
I mainly disagree with this because what if there was someone in a prison who had great grades, amazing health and the perfect genes but was only pushed back by the reason he shoplifted when he was sixteen. There really is an great amount of elitism and backwards methods in this book and I hope that it can slowly disintegrate or manipulate it in some way.

The story wasn’t that immersive either; the build up was lacking yet there were points where it could’ve been ramped up a notch, but it just wasn’t.
The world building felt slightly messy and quickly written; it generally didn’t feel like there was much creative input invested into the planning of it other than a young girl on a new planet in love with two guys and she had to chose which one she loved.

I didn’t understand how Novo was built in secret, I understand how it can be classified documents from the public, but you’d think they’d notice the giant planet being built next door? I probably missed something in the book but I really didn’t understand it.

This book really focused on shock factor for the reader’s attention; such things as love triangles, family struggles are okay but then the author added in a part about the government outlawing homosexuals and anything to do with homosexuality or any type of sexuality apart from heterosexual relationships…
I rolled my eyes and wanted to throw my kindle down and never touch the book again.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO DISCRIMINATE SEXUAL ORIENTATION’S TO MAKE A GOOD BOOK.
The author literally made it so that the book could continue and the story could progress; so that Ariana and Cal could break Cal’s best friend out of jail for him to get to the rebels to get Ariana and Cal to safety.
Fuck.

Characters:
The characters in this book are pretty wooden, generic and very ‘Perfect’.

Ariana starts off as a strong, independent woman (sorry) who literally has the perfect life and is really cool in my opinion!
She’s pretty well written… until the love triangles happen and she just becomes this whiny little girl who pines for her lover and for the man she has no memories of.
I don’t see her as this strong, powerful character that other reviews are chorusing her to be.

Cal is the popular, outspoken, beautiful boy who captures all the girls’ attention.
He’s the cocky, arrogant kid in class who always has something to say.
I really don’t like the idea of this character, especially when Arianna’s best friend stated how Cal might only be rude to Ariana because he fancied her.

Right okay topic time; I do not understand the need for difference between books written with a male or a female protagonist. The books with male protagonists normally either have literally no love interest or go into a complete fucking Harem (A story were a guy has multiple girls wanting him, but he only wants one… or two)
Then when we go into a book with a female protagonist we see endless lines of guys that SHE fancies and that SHE wants and it seems that they either always get heartbroken, the dude dies/sacrifices himself or the dude isn’t in love them; I find it to be a bit of bullshit honestly.
I mean; I’m all for freedom of choices and such, but there comes a point where it becomes a literally guideline that YA authors and sometimes in general ALL authors find and think ‘THAT WOULD BE GOOD YES’ no, not atal - They start off creating an awesome character who is really badass and then the male love interests come in and it drives the Female protagonist to look like some damsel in distress who only does these things for the attention or the acceptance of the guy she’s doing it for.
Rant over.
Fuck. (This isn’t just a straight jab at the author; I literally mean this with all YA authors)

The relationships were borderline boring and borderline-almost-kind-of-sort-of realistic; they were very fantasy like.
The action in this book was utterly overshadowed by unneeded emotion.

The book to me wasn’t great.
I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would’ve and I’m quite saddened by that.
Thank you too the author for sending me this book.

I don’t have anything else to say guys…

I’ll catch you on the flip side, guys.

See ya later.

Joe :)

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