The Unidentified by Rae MarizMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I picked this book up out of a vague curiosity--I like dystopians, and it was an interesting idea. And it was an interesting start to the book, but that ended up being my general thought throughout the book, "oh, that's interesting." Not...OMG THATS CRAZY, LOVE IT, HATE IT...or anything like that.
Kid goes to a school sponsored by corporations, where the ultimate sign of making it to the top is being branded, aka, begin chosen as a spokesperson for companies. The book is basically about her discovering that this isn't as a good thing as she's been taught to believe.
My first problem with the book was the overload of new terminology. Terminology in a dystopian takes a lot of finesse to craft right, and Mariz didn't really succeed here.A few things made sense, like branding, but a lot of it didn't. For example, why call school The Game? Just to make it seem fun? What was the "prize" at the end? Never really knew. Never really knew either why sponsors would spend that much money for marketing--they kept saying the whole word was watching, but really, it seemed like everyone in the school was just watching each other. Isn't that how high school already seems right now? It wasn't as if they were constantly on TV or anything as one giant reality show.
[Spoiler in next paragraph]
The surprise ending was a surprise, I'll admit that, but honestly, it was kind of a letdown. Everything was building up for some kind of giant blowup, and then...oh...it was a marketing campaign. *shakes fist at corporations* darn you, evil corporations, how dare you market?? SO EVIL!
*laughs* yeah. ok. Over that.
Anyway, decent read, mildly entertaining...just don't question the reasons behind the world too much. And I'd save it for that day at the beach when you have nothing else to read.
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