Linked by Imogen Howson

Series: Linked (bk. 1)

Genera: Sci-Fi/Dystopian

Subjects: outer space, space travel, psychic ability, twins, sisters, love

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 359 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $16.99

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary/ product description: “Elissa used to have it all: looks, popularity, and a bright future. But for the last three years, she’s been struggling with terrifying visions, phantom pains, and mysterious bruises that appear out of nowhere.
Finally, she’s promised a cure: minor surgery to burn out the overactive area of her brain. But on the eve of the procedure, she discovers the shocking truth behind her hallucinations: she’s been seeing the world through another girl’s eyes.
Elissa follows her visions, and finds a battered, broken girl on the run. A girl—Lin—who looks exactly like Elissa, down to the matching bruises. The twin sister she never knew existed.
Now, Elissa and Lin are on the run from a government who will stop at nothing to reclaim Lin and protect the dangerous secrets she could expose—secrets that would shake the very foundation of their world.
Riveting, thought-provoking and utterly compelling, Linked will make you question what it really means to be human.”

My Review: I am so utterly disappointed in this book. It had such a great premise, wonderful world building, but the way it’s written is just so boring. The characters are boring. The dialogue is boring, and possibly British sounding. This has been such an awful let down. The cover is beautiful, but the book in it sucks.

But the fact that it’s set on a distant planet is very unique (to me). I’ve only read a few books set in outer space, but none on made up planets.This planet has a city with shelf apartments and slidewalks and so many cool unique things that are very different from the world todays. I pretty much pictured the city in the Total Recall remake (such cool CGI). It’s so highly futuristic, set 1000s of years in the future after terraforming a bunch of exo-planets. Yet, there’s some still familiar stuff, like clothing: hoodies.

This book could have been better if it was 1^st person perspective, switching between Elissa and Lin so we could see both points of view. Also if the characters had actual defining characteristic in their personality. Caden was the only well-defined character in my opinion. Elissa is uninteresting. The book could have been better from Lin’s POV.

The plot is kind of slow, despite being on the run from the government. I honestly felt like there was no plot. I basically skimmed the whole book, except for the world building stuff, even if it was info-dumping. I feel like Elissa’s kind of dumb, like she doesn’t think about what she’s saying, and when there’s a thought, it’s too long.

There’s no quirky fun dialogue or banter. Lissa and Lin get into arguments that are about stupid stuff. There’s a lot of obvious stuff. A lot of stuff that the author didn’t need. I was like: Way to state the obvious. I was pretty sick of reading it, but I had to stick with it.

The only other interesting thing was a twist at the end. We find out what Lin was supposed to be used for. The space travel stuff was okay too, but I’m not a Star Treck fan like my mom, so I felt like the author was just copying that stuff.

I recommend this book to fans of Star Treck/Starship Academy, Battlestar Galatica, Star Gate, Firefly, Across the Universe series, Glow (Amy Kathleen Ryan), Black Hole Sun, or space operas. But beware; you may get bored pretty quickly. I’m not even sure if I want to read the second book after such a dysto-fail.

Cover Art Review: I love this cover. The way the photo is cut up is really cool and the type being linked. The NK put together. But the cover is very deceiving. The book’s about a society on the distant planet and psychic twins, so where’s the space stuff? And the book wasn’t good, but the package was pretty.