This book was a huge disappointment. I was expecting some interesting dystopian sci-fi, like 1984, Brave New World, maybe a bit Handmaid's Tale, The Road.... Instead I found this book dreading, boring and annoying. All cops are bad, all whites are bad (especially men), even the protagonists have no conscience or moral compass, they feel justified to loot and steal wherever they go.

The anarcho-marxist message of the book becomes very clear in this poem:
All struggles / Are essentially / power struggles. / Who will rule, / Who will lead, / Who will define, / refine, / confine, / design, / Who will dominate. / All struggles / Are essentially / power struggles, / And most / are no more intellectual / than two rams / knocking their heads together

The combination of graphic misery **** (hello, A Little Life), the YA style of writing, the lack of backstory and the blatant anarcho-Marxist (and racist) undertones was very annoying. I cannot believe the raving reviews, this book is crap.

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Rant about major flaws in the story

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- Water is too expensive, it never rains, but somehow the gardens are overflowing with fresh vegetables.

- There is nothing to do, everybody seems to be patiently waiting for the next robbery/fire/raping. Meanwhile people walk around in rags, things break down and nothing gets fixed. Everybody is so APATHETIC (maybe from a lack of sleep due to the 2-hour night patrol shifts). The only neighbor who does have a business is called arrogant and greedy.

- Why would anyone choose to risk their lives over a safe life in a commercial city? Or is competely unnatural to rather live near drug addicted pyromaniacs in poverty than to go work for and be protected by your employer, unless you think capitalism is worse than murder, rape and arson. Lauren's father does work for a company - even commuting on his own risk! - but somehow that is totally fine.

- Lauren is a hyperempath yet speaks with the most detached voice ever. She seems to feel nothing except for some physical sensations when someone is in pain. She also has no problems checking out dead bodies, raped children, severed limbs. She can kill a guy "and not think much about it". She is a looter, and her only goal in life is to become a cult leader.

- If there are poor people, there are successful people somewhere else. Where are they? What happened? Is anarchism limited to the USA? Why are people paying TAXES? So there IS a government? HOW? Alright, so the US seems to be a ********, and somehow every human in the country has turned into a cathartic savage in a couple of decades. But WHY would you try to emigrate to another planet amidst an energy crisis when you can travel to other countries?

- I find it highly improbable that a girl, who turned 18 a week before, would have a sexual relationship with a bearded man who is 40 years older, in public. And why does he travel on foot when he is rich enough to travel by car??
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Parable of the Sower - Likewise Book Reviews

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