"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Albert Einstein

02 July 2014

The Rules


Kade, Stacey. The Rules. Disney-Hyperion, 2013. 

Ariane is an alien-human hybrid who was kidnapped from a research facility and has been raised as a "replacement" for her kidnapper's dead daughter. She lives a very careful life so that no one will discover the truth about her. Only one day she breaks the rules, and then she realizes everything she thought she knew was a lie.

From the cover, this looks like a good read-alike for Matched. I was expecting another typical YA dystopian series, where I would enjoy the first book and be annoyed at the others in the series, but this is actually a decent science fiction novel without falling into the Dystopian Trilogy Trap. It is a good book, and it is a YA science fiction series, but it isn't a dypstopia. I started reading this one because I thought my students would like it, but I actually enjoyed the book more than I expected. Yes, the "surprises" in the book aren't really that surprising, but they might be to the average teen reader. And the concept of an alien-human hybrid is interesting.

Recommended for: teens, fans of science fiction, fans of dystopia (even though this one isn't really a dystopia)
Red Flags: minor violence
Overall Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Read-alikes: Adaptation

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