Grid Seekers - Logan Byrne I received a free copy of the book from the author for my honest opinion.

Alexia Meyers is seventeen years old and lives in a dystopian future where the internet is no longer known as the internet it is now called the WorldNet. In the WorldNet people are physically connected to WorldNet. Well their bodies don’t literally go inside WorldNet but it feels and looks real to them. They know that their bodies are not really there with them even though it does feel like it. Alexia lives in New York one of the six megacities as they are called now. Alexia has never been outside of New York but neither have most of the other people who live there. New York has a block wall built around it now so she couldn’t leave New York if she tried.

New York is divide into different sections by I guess you could say by class or how rich a person may be. Alexia is on the down side of everything so she never got much of an education because they couldn’t afford it. Besides she needed to go to work to help her mom, Kate out with paying bills and buying groceries. She also helps take care of her little sister Saraia. Alexia loves both her mother and sister so very much at the moment they are her life. Alexia is so good hearted they she has never felt any resentment toward her mother or sister for having to work and help make ends meet as they say. Everyone in Alexia’s world has to do the same thing probably so that is all they know.

Once a year they hold a lottery drawing where there are four people from each of the six megacities picked to be on a live tv show. To be eligible to enter the lottery you must be between the ages of sixteen to sixty and have been on the WorldNet at least one time within the past year. This year Alexia is one of the lucky ones who was drawn to be on the tv show if you want to call it that. On this tv show they assign everyone a partner from their own city and they must compete against others from their own city and from the other megacities. The losers are punished severely so Alexia is determined to win the contest so that she can go back home to her family.

She is taken away from her family whom she may not see again for a very long time if she does not win. She is taken to a facility to meet the other twenty-three people whom she will be competing against and her partner. She will be trained and then sent inside WorldNet to compete and hopefully win. Alexia’s partner is a very handsome young man, Liam who may just be the only person that she can trust. Well hopefully she can trust him as he is her partner. There are times in the game that I am not so sure if she can trust him or not. One minute he seems like the greatest human on the face of the earth and the next minute he sounds like he is about to stab you in the back.

I really enjoyed reading Grid Seekers way more than I thought I would. It was so different than any book I think I have ever read. It was written like a movie sort of. Half of the time I thought I was watching a movie. I loved trying to guess who did what and who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Grid Seekers is an amazing book that will take you on the ride of your life. You won’t know from one minute to the next what is going to happen. But one thing I can tell you is you better strap in and hold on when you start reading it or you just may fall right off. It will take you on so many hair bend turns and twist you won’t know what has hit you. But it is one book you won’t want to miss out on reading. So snatch your copy today so you go on this little ride with Alexia, Liam, Jason, Bridgette, Jamie, Mathew just to name a few of the characters. Some of the characters will surprise you while you can guess exactly what some of the characters are up too or at least you think you do. Any ways I can’t wait to read the next book. Will it tell the story from Liam’s or one of the other characters pov or will it tell us more about Alexia and Liam? I would love to read more about Alexia and Liam and their families. Thanks Logan for one awesome book. I tee totally loved it! I recommend it to all age groups who loves a good story.

This is a young-adult dystopian novel set in a future world where a failed revolution has caused the government to revert back to a highly controlled city state model that separates people into six zones based on their skills and traits. When children turn sixteen, they are sent to the headquarters where a computer analyzes them and chooses the most appropriate section for them to be trained in.  People with physical strength are in Stalwart, those with mental acuity are placed in Astute, strong leadership skills are in Collusive, the beautiful are in Radiant, the dreamers in Quixotic and the helpers in Altruistic. After their section is chosen, you are banded, color coded and sent off to training. Kalenna Slater has just turned sixteen.  She is banded and placed in Altruistic, away from her mother and sister in Quixotic.  She can only take one item and her memories with her. 

"You were placed where you fit in best.  Your benefit to society was determined by your skill and your skill defined your life."


I enjoyed this book as a light, fun read; although, I could easily see where it was going at points and was fairly predictable.  I was really interested in why society collapsed, how did the revolution fail?  I was also very interested in the bands themselves.  People are given 100 points on their bands and if you reach 0 points, you are injected with poison and die.  The actions for point reduction as well as the number of points reduced seems arbitrary.  Who is controlling it?  The main character, Kal, grew on me throughout the story.  At first she was a very scared and stereotypical 16 year old girl.  She does find inner and outer strength throughout the story.  The plot that involves Kalenna's father, who disappeared when she was 6, is the most interesting.  This plot point did take a while to get to, but being the first in the series there was a lot of building to do.  Also, Kalenna's roommate, Justine, at headquarters is an interesting character that could further the plot.  I hope Justine makes a reappearance in the second installation as well as Kalenna's father. 

There are many parallels between this book and other well known YA dystopian novels out there.  You may love Banded along with them, or not.

This book started off pretty good. I really liked the voice of the main character, Oliver. However, the further I got into the novel, the more I disliked it. There were a lot of individual issues that supremely bothered me—everything from grammar to irresponsible medical diagnoses—and that’s just the beginning! I wavered back and forth between one and two stars for quite awhile before finally settling here. In all honesty, the extra star is mostly for the shock value I got when I read an event that occurred at the end of the novel—and as much as that event pissed me off, I couldn’t ignore how surprised I was, and I feel like a book deserves credit for throwing me a curveball.

 

An ARC of this book was provided for me by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. (All grammatical comments should be compared to a finished edition of the work, which I don't have.)

 

What I Liked: Spoilers!

HAH. Hahahahahaha. Hahahahhhhh...okay.

I was pretty set on giving it one star, possibly two, because it's poorly written, Oliver seems to have issues with women and being overly possessive of them, and the romance and representation of mental diseases were both incredibly overblown and inaccurate.

 

BuT READER BEWARE THE MEGA SPOILER THAT WILL FOLLOW IN THIS SECTION. Honestly, I don't recommend the book, all things considered, so if you don't think you'll read it, by all means, charge right ahead.

 

Okay, soooooo.

I was at like, 97%, and I'm like, "Dude, what the heck, Oliver just got out of the unit, and he's about to go see Lacey for their first date. Why is he buying flowers?? I'm at 99%! How in the heck does this end? And there's a cAR,HE GOT HIT BY THE CAR, HE'S DYING, GEEZ, HE'S DYING, OH HE'S DEAD."

 

I'll just throw it out there, in case it wasn't know, that this is a first person, past tense narration.

So...

I shouldn't be laughing as hard as I am, because the back of the book says that almost everything except one scene was based on real life events, but I mean, it's a fiRST PERSON PAST TENSE NARRATION, YOU CAN'T JUST KILL THE MAIN CHARACTER WHO IN THE HECK ARE THEY RELATING THE STORY TO AND HOW YOU CAN'T DO THIS IN CONTEMPORARY FICTION, YOU JUST CAN'T, I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THIS.

 

Then again, it was so unexpected that I feel like I need to give it a star just because I reacted to crazily to it.

I just...what.

WAT.

(spoiler show)

Okay, surely you don't need a religious background to think a seventeen-year-old guy should show a little more hesitancy before having sex with a girl he met six days ago? And, whoaaaa, then she totally ignores him the next day.

 

This book pisses me off on so many levels. 

Tucker friggin committed suicide,

(spoiler show)

but Oliver is way more concerned about his relationship with Lacey than a petty thing like what happened the day before. They're so in lahv and it's only been six days, and he's going to "fix" her.

 

Plus, Oliver keeps saying these weird thoughts about the differences between men and women, and he's really possessive of Lacey. 

 

"I finally had my girl back."

 

 

"...and Esther looked like she was winning the argument, just like every other woman on the planet. I think it was some unwritten rule that a women would always win an argument against a man, no matter the subject. As I'd learned over my years, there was nothing a man could do that a women couldn't do better, at least so they said."

 

"If I ever wanted her back, I would have to be the one to go to her room when the lights went out and the darkness filled these halls. The thoughts of sneaking down to her room terrified me to no ends. I felt, as a guy, that it would look worse for me to sneak down there than for her to sneak into my room. I think that adults generally see guys, especially teenager ones, as sex crazed and horny all of the time. With all of the aids and nurses being women, if they did a check and saw me in there late at night they would likely think I was in there for that purpose, which I was clearly not. If they caught a girl in my room late at night, I didn't think they would assume the same, for women in general were a thousand percent less sex crazed than men."

 

"She was safe with me, and I wanted her to know it. Other people might not have given her a chance, an she was a very hurt and damaged girl, but I was going to nurture and fixed her, whether she liked it or not." (emphasis mine)

 

"Sometimes I just wished that women, at least the ones I knew, would just be upfront and honest just like every other man on this planet."

 

What the heck, Oliver? You obviously have some issues.

 

Then there are just some things that make you really want to slap someone.

 

"...my daddy is in jail..."

The kid saying this is twelve, and the author treats him like he's six. This is not an accurate representation of almost any twelve-year-old, and it bothers the heck out of me every time Marcus is in a scene. 

 

These things could mess with your mind, and it made me believe that Seasonal Affective Disorder was a real thing, especially when you were trapped in a hospital.

It MADE YOU BELIEVE A DISORDER IS ACTUALLY A DISORDER? DID YOU THINK PEOPLE WITH SAD JUST MADE IT UP BEFORE OR AM I MISSING SOMETHING? GLAD YOU'VE DEIGNED TO RECOGNIZE A MEDICAL DISORDER AS SOMETHING REAL, KAY BYE.

 

"I'd rather be made miserable by you than happy by anyone else."

Aw, I just love when books promote abusive relationships.

 

...her body taunting me like a chocolate doughnut taunting a diabetic.

This is because she happens to be walking in front of him and he just can't stop staring at her butt. How dare her!

 

I shouldn't even talk about Oliver and why he's in there. Oliver says he's depressed, but he seems to just want space from his parents. Lacey has apparently "cured" him, and when she's not there, he's "depressed" all over again. Plus, let's just remember that the doctor talked to him for three seconds before diagnosing him with bi-polar disorder. The medical information and representation in this book is hecka messed up. And Oliver pisses me off on so many levels.