The Prime Minster is now a transformer.
Woman, not 16 year old girl. |
In the village of Martindale, hundreds of
miles north of the new English capital of Windsor, sixteen-year-old Silver
Blackthorn takes the Reckoning. This coming-of-age test not only decides her
place in society – Elite, Member, Inter or Trog – but also determines that
Silver is to become an Offering for King Victor. But these are uncertain times
and no-one really knows what happens to the teenagers who disappear into
Windsor Castle. Is being an Offering the privilege everyone assumes it to be,
or do the walls of the castle have something to hide? Trapped in a maze of
ancient corridors, Silver finds herself in a warped world of suspicion where it
is difficult to know who to trust and who to fear. The one thing Silver does
know is that she must find a way out . . .
I hate when
people blindly tell you something is a mix of two other books but this book did
remind me very much of Hunger Games by Suzanne Colins and Pawn by Aimie Carter. Basically,
Typical Dystopia set up. Set after some
sort of civil/global war, most people are hungry and impoverish, the
ruling government is lying to you and is incredibly corrupt. The catalase for all this is, oil has run out,
I don’t buy that much because they actually alternative to most oil products
but you know it doesn’t matter how and why. It’s just how things are now. It
just has certain of aspects of those two books but it does become its own novel
once you really get into it. Also Pawn only came out last January so it’s probably a coincidence
that they both have tests in them, that classify your rank in society.
This is set
in England. Now I say England because
the top half of Britain a.k.a Scotland a.k.a my homeland is not part of this
government and we never actually go where Wales is. England and Wales have been
spit to four realms. Sometimes in books, it's the off-hand comments are
what stick with me. Map of England & Wales is shown; something like a
Scotland use to be a top is said. So now I’m left wondering if Scotland is
literally gone (in this world places have been completely destroyed) or is its
own country and there is a guarded border. This is a start of a series so
hopefully we learn that and stuff about other countries. The civilians have no
contract with people from other countries so have no idea what happening out
there except going off what knew before they were cut off. In times of war
sharing a border does make things interesting; I feel like that could be a
feature in the next books.
The world
building in this book is interesting. I’ve got to say going off the given
summary I don’t fully get that it’s a dystopian. Basically, it has the fun of a
dystopian set in a castle. Except for that it doesn’t have medieval vibe at all.
Class stuff does sort of play into it, with the Elites tending to come from
families of Elites and be raised to think the better than everyone else. It
doesn’t play much in the actual story as you think it would because the
situation of the castle levels out everyone.
The
character all seem to have some depth. I think the relationships are well done.
They all fairly realistic and no one does something completely mind dumbing for
the sake of the plot. There is one case of someone does deciding to reveal
information at the perfect time for the plot though. I don’t care that much for
Sliver but the world is interesting enough to out balance that.
Overall, I gave this book four out of five stars for Minster
Primes. This was good start of a trilogy (the Sliver Blackthorn Trilogy if you're wondering). Main plot points of that book are
resolved but there tons left to be developed on.
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