The Stranded by Sarah Daniels
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The Stranded is a YA-Dystopian novel, the cover and synopsis of which grabbed my attention right away. The cover emits quite the vibe. I love it. It’s so Ghost Ship.
I was lucky enough to receive an early copy, but then put off reading it for a bit after seeing some not so encouraging reviews. I wasn’t sure I was in the right mood to get into it at that time.
Recently, I felt inspired to go for it. I was itching to get into a dark and high-stakes YA-Dystopian world.
Unfortunately, this book was a complete miss for me. After the initial set-up, I’m talking the first 5-8%, I was feeling good about it, but then nothing happened.
It never took off for me; fell flat with a vengeance. I dreaded picking it back up after I put it down and never felt compelled or intrigued in any way.
Honestly, I should have pulled the plug, but for some reason, I just felt like if I kept going, maybe I would have a light-bulb moment with it. All would make sense and I would suddenly feel connected with the characters and the story.
The narrative follows three different characters, none of which I felt were particularly well-developed. Additionally, I didn’t feel the world was developed at all. I wanted so much more from it.
One of the things I tend to enjoy about Dystopians are that, sometimes, if done well, you can see glimmers of your society in them. You think to yourself, this is creepy because this could happen. I never felt that with this, because I didn’t feel like I really knew anything about the world, or what led them to be in the current state.
The stakes were ambiguous, the tension was nonexistent and I couldn’t have cared less what happened to any of the characters we were following.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse with this review, too late, some of you may be thinking, nevertheless I shall bow out gracefully here…
As always, please take my opinion with a grain of salt. I am by no means an expert on all things YA Dystopian novels.
If this synopsis sounds intriguing to you, give it a go. You may love it and then you can circle back and tell me how very wrong I am. I look forward to it!
Thank you to the publisher, Sourcebooks Fire, for providing me with a copy to read and review.
Although The Stranded wasn’t for me, I know there are a lot of Readers out there who will really enjoy it. I look forward to seeing their thoughts on this one.