ACID

by Emma Pass

2113. In Jenna Strong’s world, ACID – the most brutal, controlling police force in history – rule supreme. No throwaway comment or muttered dissent goes unnoticed – or unpunished. And it was ACID agents who locked Jenna away for life, for a bloody crime she struggles to remember.

The only female inmate in a violent high-security prison, Jenna has learned to survive by any means necessary. And when a mysterious rebel group breaks her out, she must use her strength, speed and skill to stay one step ahead of ACID – and to uncover the truth about what really happened on that dark night two years ago.

• ISBN10: 0552566144
• ISBN13: 9780552566148
• Publish Date: 25 April 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
• Imprint: Corgi Childrens
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

Jenna is an awesome bad-ass that YA novels have been waiting for. She's tough and strong and anybody who wants to mess with her, should watch out!

The story's pace is fast and amazing in some places and in other places it began to drag and I was a little boring. But the beginning and the ending of the story makes you want to turn the pages trying to figure out what is going to happen next. The story starts of with Jenna in a male prison using her bad-ass fighting skills to defend herself against any creep that comes her way, until she is broken out of prison and after a while goes on the run. Towards the middle the book begins to drag, especially towards that certain part when it doesn't do much to the plot of the story. (You'll probably understand what I'm talking about when you read it.)

I felt that Jenna and her love interest didn't really show a whole load of chemistry before that slap-bang moment nearly happened. It felt a little out of the blue, kind of like an insta love sort of thing.

The world building that you want in a futuristic Dystopia novel was a little lacking, but the Dystopia effect of controlling leaders or organisation and a rebel against them was there.

I loved Jenna's bad-ass personality, the plot and the Dystopian rebellion aspect. I felt that towards the middle the book began to drag, information that didn't add anything to the plot was put into the novel and even although I thought the love interest was cute, their relationship felt a tad bit 'out of the blue'.

[Rinn]

I received this book for free from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Also posted on my book blog, Rinn Reads.

I have read a lot of Young Adult dystopian fiction lately. I really enjoy dystopian, plus there is a bit of trend for it at the moment (just a teeny weeny bit...). This means that these sorts of books have a lot to live up to - and I felt the tone of this one was quite different from the others, which made it even more enjoyable.

To start with, our protagonist, Jenna Strong, is supposedly a criminal. It opens with her in prison - an all-male prison, it's never quite explained why she's the only female in there - which sets her character up nicely. She is skilled in combat, tough-skinned and able to defend herself. In the time she has been there she's forged a reputation for herself, and whilst the new inmates see her as easy pickings, the old ones know better. The reader is immediately given this impression of a cold-hearted young woman, but more and more of Jenna's past and personality are revealed as the book progresses.

Jenna's world, like all the setting of all dystopians, is not quite our world. She lives in the Independent Republic of Britain, which is ruled by a force called ACID (I can't remember if Pass ever mentions what it stands for!). All content is monitored, news screens with approved feeds from the government must be switched on for a set number of hours per day, alcohol and tobacco are banned, prolonged contact with an unrelated member of the opposite sex is illegal, and people are put with a 'LifePartner' in their late teens, who they will be with for life. It's very much your typical dystopian government, all seeing and all controlling - what I'll never get is why so many of these dystopian governments force people upon each other - and it's never really explained. It's mentioned that the rest of the world hasn't changed - for example, the Internet is just a rumour in the IRB but at one point one of the characters mentions how other countries still have it. So the reasoning behind this radical governmental change is never explained, but I can only assume it happened just within Britain, and not the rest of the world.

Yes, there is a romance. However, it's only minor - and it's not a triangle! I actually originally thought it was going to be another guy at first, and I was completely and utterly wrong, which was nice. And to top that off, Emma Pass adds in some great twists - some I saw coming, and others that I did not.

There were a couple of moments I had to question. At one point, Jenna wakes up after a certain big event to find that the people who have taken her in have performed cosmetic surgery on her (actually it happens twice), so she no longer looks anything like herself. She doesn't even bat an eyelid at this sudden change, which was really weird. Sure, some people might not like their appearance, but I know for one that I would be pretty upset if someone did that to me. I'm used to my features, like my small nose and greenish-brown eyes, even if I do sometimes wish I could change things, and if I were to wake up one day with a big nose and blue eyes I'd freak out more than just a little bit! It would be unsettling, and you wouldn't feel yourself at all. There was also a bit towards the end where Jenna does something really awesome, and then makes the stupidest decision and basically undoes all her work - and then has to fix it again a bit later on. However, she also makes some unexpected choices throughout the book which really surprised me, so kudos to the author there!

The last section of the story was really fast, tense and action-packed, and really fun to read, although I do think the story concluded a little too quickly. I was at about 95% thinking that it couldn't possibly wrap up, and wondered if there was a sequel - but no, it did and it's a standalone novel.

So whilst the world building and explanations could definitely be improved upon, I thought this was generally a really fun read, with a different feel to the other Young Adult dystopian novels out there, and am certainly glad I requested it.

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

2.5-ish stars

Oh, ACID. You could have been amazing. You could have been wonderful. With a cover like that and a badass main character, you could have been the love of my bookish life. But, alas. After a glorious start, you kind of crashed and burned.

I have a handy dandy enjoyment graph to illustrate my thoughts:



ACID starts out strong—with a 17 year old badass who can take on fully grown, perverted men, and an epic prison break. I LOVED how Jenna kicked some serious ass and wasn't afraid to stand up for herself. Then things immediately get moving with a prison break and Jenna is whisked away by mysterious "good samaritans". The author feeds us some sneak peaks of what is to come, and promises us information and background story! ....which we don't get until about 250 pages later.

The problem with ACID is that the questions just kept building and building, until we finally got answers 150 pages from the end, but at that point I had already guessed all the answers anyway. I hate it when you don't have that moment of clarity and understanding along with the main character. I hate it when the main character has to catch up to you. I knew the answers (or at least strongly suspected), but then she found out hundreds of pages later and was like OH MY GOD! And I was like "Way ahead of you, girlie."

So, in the beginning we get fed our questions, but before we get the answers we are treated to: a long "prisoners on the run" sequence, a half-developed love interest, and an entirely useless 75 pages of "My memory has been wiped" before the grand finale. In the second half of the book, Jenna has her memories wiped and ACID plants her in a new life to start fresh. We spend 75 pages living this new life with her.. seeing her new LifePartner, her new job, she makes a few new friends, etc. But the problem was these entire 75 pages were COMPLETELY useless, because obviously she gets her memory back and then immediately goes back to her previous life. You could literally just scrap those 75 pages and still understand the entire book.

There were a lot of interesting ideas in ACID but they don't get as fleshed out as I would have liked. Overall we're left with a pretty vague sense of the future and what London is like, and we have ZERO sense of what the rest of the world is like (what's going on with the US or the rest of Europe?). However, there are a few cool snippets in the book that I did really like, including news articles, transcripts between ACID agents, and letters. They were an interesting and different way of presenting information, even if they did feel a bit random at times.

But so many of the events in ACID just felt random and strung together, rather than seamlessly intertwined. Like when we totally randomly read a letter from Jenna's real mother.. It comes out of NOWHERE. Or her short interaction with the group of terrorists; it felt so fleeting and not all that connected to the overall story. And then the totally useless memory wiping thing. I just felt like so many of these plot lines didn't connect as well as they should/could have.

If I had to compare ACID to another book, I would pick Delirium by Lauren Oliver or Matched by Ally Condie. ACID has a very similar vibe, with a futuristic world, a corrupt government, government-sponsored matchmaking, and completely controlled lives (you get told when you can have a baby, what job you will have, etc.). And then we have the rebellion aspect.

Ultimately, ACID ended up being only okay. So many parts of it felt half developed, unnecessary, or just waned entirely (like Jenna's badassness). Other than the beginning—which I thought was awesome—I didn't particularly love any part of this book... although I didn't particularly hate any parts either. It was just.. 'meh'.