Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Hungry ~ H.A. Swain (earc) review [@FeiwelFriends @MacKidsBooks]

Hungry
Feiwel & Friends
June 3, 2014
384 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depo/or Amazon

In the future, food is no longer necessary—until Thalia begins to feel something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. She’s hungry.

In Thalia’s world, there is no need for food—everyone takes medication (or “inocs”) to ward off hunger. It should mean there is no more famine, no more obesity, no more food-related illnesses, and no more war. At least that's what her parents, who work for the company that developed the inocs, say. But when Thalia meets a boy who is part of an underground movement to bring food back, she realizes that most people live a life much different from hers. Worse, Thalia is starting to feel hunger, and so is he—the inocs aren’t working. Together they set out to find the only thing that will quelleir hunger: real food.

H. A. Swain delivers an adventure that is both epic and fast-paced. Get ready to be Hungry.

Hungry started a little bit slow for me. The concept was immediately intriguing but the story did not grab me right away. Once I got farther in it became a very gripping story. I was, also, glad that all of the bits that had seemed a little slower had been included. They give a great introduction to the characters and their world and a necessary basis for the happenings of the rest of the novel.

H.A. Swain has created a well thought and thought provoking dystopian world. In Hungry food is on more - it is neither present nor needed. There is a reason for the lack of actual food and it is something that also plays very well into other parts of the book. The if-then-statements of Hungry are incredibly well done.

Thalia has access to gadgets, innovations, science that seem like the techno-filled future of some people's dreams. While this part of the story is definitely a lot of fun to read - as well as imagine - things aren't that simple. It's how all of that technology and science plays into the human side of those future humans where the tale gets really good. It's a world where they think they have everything figured out, but when something - Thalia's hunger - doesn't fit, things start to look not quite so perfect. Little does Thalia know just how imperfect everything will soon seem.

Hungry is a vision of a thought provoking future that asks more questions than just those you notice at first; from the simpler ones of science to deeper ones on emotion and humanity. It's not a story - or characters - that you will soon forget.


Rating: 8/10


Other books you may also enjoy: When We Wake books by Karen Healey, Delirium by Lauren Oliver and Plus One by Elizabeth Fama






book received through NetGalley, thanks to publisher for review


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