BOOK REVIEW - STUNG by BETHANY WIGGINS - STUNG # 1 - BLOOMSBURY - WALKER CHILDREN - YA DYSTOPIAN

By: Bethany Wiggins

Published By: Bloomsbury Aust , Walker Children

Released : Available Now

Details: Paperback for review from publisher, 291 Pages

RATING : 5 BOWEN & FO STARS!!

Blurb: Goodreads

There is no cure for being stung.

Fiona doesn’t remember going to sleep. But when she opens her eyes, she discovers her entire world has been altered—her house is abandoned and broken, and the entire neighborhood is barren and dead. Even stranger is the tattoo on her right hand—a black oval with five marks on either side—that she doesn’t remember getting but somehow knows she must cover at any cost. She’s right.

Those bearing the tattoo have turned into mindless, violent beasts that roam the streets and sewers, preying upon the unbranded while a select few live protected inside a fortress-like wall, their lives devoted to rebuilding society and killing all who bear the mark.

Now Fiona has awakened branded, alone—and on the wrong side of the wall.

BOOK REVIEW by Michelle:

I will start by saying I absolutely loved this YA dystopian. It was fast paced, I loved the main characters, there were twists, I was kept interested and entertained. If I hadn’t fallen asleep at 2.00am I would have not put this book down. I was captivated from the first page. It is a non-stop ride. 

Some really great twists and curveballs are thrown in to the story line. This always make me a happy reader. 

I hadn’t heard anything about this book when I was given it to review by the lovely people at Bloomsbury Australia. I picked it up purely because it was only 291 pages and I wanted something under 300 pages to read. I had also finished All Our Yesterdays a week prior and I really enjoyed that book too, published by Bloomsbury Aust, another YA dystopian.

I am so glad I got to this book sooner than later, because I would have been missing out. It might not be a long read but no words are wasted. The pages are full of excitement and great characters. 

I just went and had a peek on Goodreads and some of the reviews have not been favorable. I am a little baffled as to why? I don’t hand out 5 stars easily when I review a book and I thought this book deserved these stars from me.

Man, I just kept turning pages. This is a very, very, very exciting read. It has a great dystopian recipe. Visually I saw it very well in my head as I was reading it.

Fiona aka Fo aka Fotard. Yes, the poor girl got called that by the lads. She is a really likable character. She never complained. She woke up with a memory lapse of several years. From the first chapter the excitement starts, she is blindly moving from one predicament to the next, through no fault of her own. She can be knee deep in waste and she will keep moving. Considering she was from a well to do family, I think she just merged with the environment she was thrown into and did the best with what was thrown at her. She is learning and remembering as the story unwinds.

Militia are bringing in the ‘beasts’ to the lab inside the wall. Raiders are your kind of Mad Max looking villains who rape and torture for their own sport. Not nice chaps to come across.

Then there are those who enjoy using fec for pit fighting to the death. Yes, I said, fec.

There is so much I am not telling you as I don’t want to spoil as this is quite a ride from start to finish.

You will have to read to find out about the beasts and fec.

Bowen is only seventeen but he is in charge of his group of militia bringing in the beasts.

I really did find myself rooting for Fo to survive. I loved how Bethany wrote Bowen’s character. He really is a gorgeous character. We watch him search within himself to do the right thing when rules and a dictatorship are telling him something else, when he could make his own existence easier. We can really see how he is at war with his thoughts.

Females who are trying to survive outside the wall need to look like a boy or fear being raped and worse. The ratio is one female to seven males and Raiders will use a female until she wants to kill herself.

I really liked Tommy, a sub character. He is a very loyal, stand up guy.

There is an inevitable progression towards Fo and Bowen saying the ‘L’word but I really wanted it to happen. It wasn’t the priority of the story. These two had known each other before the wall, before what changed the world, so it wasn’t like two complete strangers met.

I felt the villains and minions were both frightening and deserving of their place in a dystopian read.

This was another read where it only took approximately four years for the world to change. I was fed enough to believe in this world Bethany had given me.

You always have one person who wants to be King Dick and have everybody so brainwashed by the rules that they comply with things that are not humane. A society who never used to do those things before, when the world was at least functioning as we know it, but throw in a power hungry villain and next minute you have a dystopian world where people cheer on death. They accept that at a certain age limit you can be euthanized or thrown outside the wall.

All because a power hungry person , says so. 

You have to give them credit, I could never get a society to believe in me enough to make me all powerful and put me at the top of the food chain and do what I say.

A power hungry person does not want a solution, they want to keep fear and loathing fresh so that everybody complies. They want soldiers to dispose of those with answers. You need fear to keep the masses in line.

I really liked the ending to this book. You get answers to the things that have kept you intrigued and turning the pages, with enough left over to have you excited for more. 

A really well told dystopian that has me very excited about book # 2, titled Cured, due for release in January 2014.

Michelle