What are the odds of two reviews in one week starring a book with The 100 in the title? Bigger I guess than reading a Dystopian YA these days that doesn't include whiny teenagers...
No one has set a foot upon the earth in the last 300 years, but suddenly it's decided that this is the right moment to change that policy. (Okay, their spaceship is as good as dead, so it's not completely illogical to go looking for a solution). And, as has been decided in the Committee of YA Novels - Dystopian (CYAND; pronounced as Cyanide) the best people to solve your problem (no matter what this problem is) are teenagers. Even better are 'criminal' teenagers who are condemned to death anyway. They will definitely clean that planet for you and start a new settlement. I don't see how that plan could falter...
There are supposed to be 100 teens on board the ship, and even if you take in account the escapee and the stow-away there are supposed to be 100 people on earth. However, only about six/seven of them are important enough to be given names. The rest is just supposed to sit there and look pretty. I know this is something seen in many novels (as it was discussed and deemed unnecessary to think up names for all people on a trip that are not really important and are just there to be able to have a cooler title or to die, by the CYAND). But I always think it's a shame. I see that it might be confusing to name every character, but I see to often that it's just a bunch of nameless kids and everything of importance - I mean literally everything - surrounds the main characters.
More things seem a bit odd. They are given no training of any kind before they are sent to earth. They have never seen earth before, they don't even know anyone who's seen earth as they have been in space for the last 300 years. Still, they are selected and almost immediately planted in a landing ship and with a 'good luck' they are sent to earth. Also, with no way to communicate to the 'mothership' except for the radiation-meters they are carrying. Good luck indeed, trying to survive when your only experience at living is in a space ship.
A lot of questions about the world building are never really answered, while I'm quite curious to find out how a large number of people has been able to survive that long in space without running out of a lot of important stuff ages ago.
Also, the main characters make some of the stupidest decisions in history (or should I say, future?). I hope they will grow some brains or just start using them.
However, I still enjoyed reading it. It's a bit like Lost and a mixture of all other kinds of YA Dystopians (as is completely okay with the CYAND), and therefore nice to read. I wanted to continue the series (and have already read the second book - the review is upcoming), and I'm also curious to see something of the series they created based upon the books.
The 100 is the first book in the The Hundred series. The second book, Day 21 is also available.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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