The Forsaken (Forsaken - Trilogy)

by Lisa M Stasse

Choose a tribe. Watch your back. And don't stop running.

Filled with thrilling adventure and romance, The Forsaken is praised by EntertainmentWeekly.com as "a fast-paced novel [that] you'll get sucked into. You just can't seem to put [it] down."

As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the US, and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet--having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can't help standing out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to the wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.

The life expectancy of prisoners on the wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and a charismatic warrior named Liam concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway.

• ISBN10: 1442432667
• ISBN13: 9781442432666
• Publish Date: 4 June 2013 (first published 10 July 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Edition: Reprint ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[Cocktails and Books]

Started a bit slow, but definitely picked up momentum. Can't wait to find out what happens next.

[inlibrisveritas]

The Forsaken is one of those books that offer you one thing but give you something else, and while it’s not necessarily a bad thing you can’t help be a tad disappointed you didn’t get what you were offered. It is a Science Fiction novel but it feels more like a survival novel for most of the story.

The U.N.A is a super country that takes up the whole of North America and in it we meet Alanna, a sixteen year old girl who unexpectedly fails a test that determines if she will be a cooperative and docile citizen. She is then sent to The Wheel, which is an island where all criminals are placed and where the story takes a different turn. I personally would have loved to see more of the U.N.A and what their overall society is like, other than their strict policy on potential criminals. I can see how the info might be given to us in book two but I would have liked a bit more solid world building before we are forced to move to The Wheel which is where most of the book takes place. It’s a savage place where you must learn how to survive in the wilderness and how to fight off the rival gangs that have formed. Life expectancy is short and it’s a very fatal sort of life, so it was interesting to see how Alanna fared in the new environment. I felt that the plot sort of moved away from the dystopian feel while only hinting at it through eventual plans of escape until about the last third of the book. While I did enjoy the high stakes and fast paced nature of their living arrangements I kind of felt like something was missing.

Alanna is a rather sweet girl and she’s the first one to assume a mistake was made when she finds herself on The Wheel, but she slowly transforms into someone who can handle the situation she is in. I wouldn’t go as far as to call her an independent fighter, but she definitely gets points of pulling her act together and recreating herself to fit her new life. As for the love interest, well I was less than thrilled by it because it kind of reeked of insta-love. Liam and Alanna worked but there was very little there for me to really get behind. The one thing about the island that I really loved was the opposing ‘tribe’ of teens and their mysterious leader called Monk. Boy these kids take the word ‘savage’ to a whole different level. I loved seeing that particular story unravel and with it the remainder of the plot, especially since it caught me off guard with a few twists I wasn’t expecting.

So while I wasn’t overly impressed with The Forsaken I do see myself moving on to book two sometime in the future, especially after the ending we were given. It does feel like I will get more answers and world building in the second one, so I’m curious to see how well it will turn out.

[Angie]

I knew nothing about The Forsaken before starting it. I just dove right in, and I'm glad that I did! I was unsure about it at the very beginning, because it seemed like the typical YA Dystopian where teens are sent away but ultimately become the ones to overthrow an unjust government. But soon enough it started getting super weird, and I just had to know what the heck was really going on! It's kind of like a futuristic Lord of the Flies combined with elements from a bunch of other contemporary Dystopians. The government has been taken over by the military, science is being used for harm, and teenagers who are predisposed to criminal behavior--as determined by a brain scan--are sent off to a prison island with no hope of escape. Alenna is a good girl and doesn't think she'll be sent to Island Alpha, but she is. She thinks it's a mistake, but eventually she learns that the island isn't exactly what it's said to be.

The Forsaken isn't the most original book out there. It falls prey to a lot of overused cliches and tropes, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I love bizarre situations caused by government conspiracies, especially when there's a weird twist at the end. That being said, there were a handful of plotholes. Some were filled in at the end, but not quite all the way. There was only one that really nagged at me for the duration of the book, which was in regards to the timing of teens arriving on the island. The brain scan is held fall semester for all Juniors, so teens who "fail" should only be turning up in the fall. Well, that's not exactly true. The teens who are already there have been there for various amounts of time, and mention that they patrol the perimeters daily to find new arrivals. This really doesn't make sense given the timing of the test, but the island doesn't work the way it supposedly should, so perhaps that's why?

The island itself was really interesting. If you're looking for something similar to The Hunger Games, this is not it. Island Alpha isn't exactly a place overrun with violent teenagers. The government is a big fat liar! However, there are definitely two distinct groups that we're introduced to. There are the villagers, which is where Alenna ends up. They're civilized and are working on a plan to escape. Then we have "the drones" which are basically a cult that follow some deity named the Monk. These are the teenagers that might actually be deranged, and they actually are dangerous. The two groups are at war, making survival difficult. There's also a mysterious disease that kills you if someone else doesn't get you first. Of course, none of this is really what it seems...

The Forsaken also has some romance. It's not front and center, and our love interests don't spend a lot of alone time together, but it is there. And it is insta-love. I wasn't overly impressed with Alenna and Liam, but I wasn't bothered by their declarations of love either. They were just kind of there. I did like how in the beginning Alenna shoved him away out of loyalty to a friend she made, and because she's more concerned with surviving and hopefully finding her parents (they had been arrested and are supposed on the island, too). But by the end Liam is her "boyfriend" and they're in love and they're going to save the world with their love or something. Whatever. I'm in it for the crazy science and evil government schemes!

I really liked The Forsaken. It's certainly not the best dystopian I've read, but I still enjoyed it a lot. I wavered between 3 and 4 stars, but decided to round up, since I'm eager to see where this is all going. That ending was super weird, and not something that I've read before. I wonder what other surprises the author has in store for us?

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.