The Stellow Project: Review

It was suppose to be a fun weekend at the cabin with her sister and best friend, but on the drive up Lilah realizes something is wrong. The wind is getting worse, hail the size of soccer balls begins to fall, and cell service is out. The three girls continue to drive up the mountain to the cabin, knowing that there is a landline and that Lilah’s father is on his way. Only he isn’t.

Calls home are spotty at best, and the girls discover that not only has New York City practically been leveled (along with much of the country), but Lilah’s dad is being blamed.

Mr. Swellows is a well know environmentalist, but the past years have turned him from scientific authority into a crazed end on times environmental terrorist. He is the one who disabled weather satellites, making sure that no one knew of the catastrophic events heading for the cities. It’s is fault that thousands of people are dead, and as it turns out it is his fault that Lilah is sick.

Ever since Lilah can remember, she has trouble breathing. Pills and surgeries have plagued her life, at seventeen she has never been allowed to stay home alone in case she stops breathing and has to be resuscitated and taken to the hospital. Her father has kept her inside their houses, in climate controlled and pressurized rooms. He made her sick, she was his control group for medicines, theories and environmental tests.

After Lilah’s best friend deserts her and informs on her to the FBI, Lilah and her sister are taken in by a group of scientists who know more about her and her family then Lilah knows about herself. Befriending the lead scientists son, Lilah begins to investigate. Files on her and her mother are found behind locked cabinets. Pills in different dosages and animal testing are being done behind doors. Experiments are running rampant and Lilah doesn’t know what to do, or what any of it means. Lilah has to decide if some mistakes and experiments are worth it in the search for the greater good of humanity and the planet. But how much can she tolerate? And what are her father and the secretive scientists going to allow her to see before the Lilah experiment is killed off for the greater good of the research?

The book was okay. I think that the premise is good, but I didn’t like the main character. She was whiney and I felt no real connection to her. It also felt like it ended rather abruptly, almost like the author wrote 300 pages and then decided that was enough so she quickly finished the novel. At the moment there doesn’t appear to be a sequel, but the way the book ended leaves it open to have one in the future.

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

            When great series go bad, that is the only way to describe Allegiants by Veronica Roth. I knew

that I wasn’t going to like a lot of it, the end was spoiled for me thanks to some inconsiderate people on Tumblr the day after it was released, but I had hoped that the rest of the novel would make up for it. It didn’t, not even a little bit.

            The novel picks up a few days after Insurgent left off, Tris is in prison for siding with the factions against Evelyn and the rest of the Rebels. Luckily for her, Four has his mother’s ear and is able to get Tris released without an execution. But they don’t want to stay in the city, now that they have heard the message from outside the walls Tris wants to complete the mission the founders of the city started, and she isn’t the only one.

            Two group in the city have risen up against Evelyn, Tris’ group that wants to leave, and the Allegiant, those that wish to return the city to the factions and their previous way of life. Together both groups work together to get Tris, Four and a group of others out of the city. In a last minute effort, Four even rescues Tris’ brother from public execution and takes Caleb out of the city with them.

            The book didn’t start of strong, and once they get out of the city the entire think goes down faster than an inexperienced skier on a double black diamond. Turns out that there are cities all over the world just like there’s, being watched and monitored by government agencies. Even during riots and killings, the government just watched and waited seeing what the people in their walled cities would do.

            Different plans are made, both from the government and rebels within the agency, those still in the city, and those that escaped the city; and not all of them are on the same page. Betrayal and murder runs through the government, as well as those once considered friends who left the city.

            I don’t want to betray the ending of the book, on the off chance someone has yet to read it and have it spoiled by Tumblr or Pintrest, but it was lame. The entire book was boring and ill written. The characters that we have grown to love over the first two books regressed to points even before Divergent began. Everyone is selfish and lying, the entire book I just wanted to yell at the characters for every single decision that they made. Not a single choice Tris, Four, or any of the city members made was in line with who they were in the first books.

            I hated ever word that I read in this novel, and was so glad when it was over. I know that some people thought that the ending was beautiful and heroic, but Tris’ decisions during the book did not logically lead up to it. Roth spent the first two books writing and explaining and intricate world, and then just threw it all away, nothing made sense, and it felt like she was just hurrying explanations along or giving subpar answers to get to the next horribly written chapter. I would recommend people NOT read this book, I wish I had just stopped at the second book, because that slight cliffhanger was a better ending than the actual one.