Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.
Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid.
She's different. She survived. Why?
When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy.
Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions -- which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses -- may actually be their greatest strengths.
This book kind of felt like a poorly made jigsaw to me, everything kind of fitted together but there are still gaps where I felt that I was totally missing something, like where I reread pages to see whether something had been explained but then it wasn't. For some books, the whole vague approach works well, but in Icons it just seemed poorly constructed.
Okay, really negative starting paragraph out of the way, I did actually enjoy Icons. I had read some negative reviews so I lowered my expectations which turned out to be a good thing because this book wasn't amazing. I did enjoy it though, I mean... ALIENS. This isn't a survival style dystopian, this is about four people coming together to lead a rebellion against a seemingly impossible adversary and learning the secret about who they really are. The secret behind the Icon Children is slowly revealed by snippets from files and emails, yet it isn't totally revealed, giving me reason to read the sequel.
One think that I have to give Stohl compliments on is the writing in this book. The storytelling mixes lyrical, beautiful prose with the blunt, scary descriptions of the Icons. I noted it in my review of Beautiful Creatures, but Stohl proves in Icons that she can still write beautifully when she's writing on her own.
Overall, Icons was an interesting and well written read but the characters, world and plot needed a little more development. I'll read the sequel, but I want more development on each of the characters and a little bit more explanation.
Book released 7th May 2013 by HarperVoyage
Book received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Yeah some first books happen to be on the vague side. Usually the second book fills in the gaps with the first one. I'll definitely give this one a try. Lovely review!
ReplyDeleteHolly @ Absorbing the Content
Eek, I don't like reading books that lacks explanation :( Hopefully the author bumps it up more on the character development and plot. The concept is great, but how the author delivers it is VERY important. Glad you enjoyed it (:
ReplyDeleteLeigh
Little Book Star
Too bad, but I do hear that a lot. It seems like a lot of people have issues with this one. I think the flaws would really hurt a book like this, especially since it is so long.
ReplyDeleteAlise @ Readers in Wonderland