Inside Out (An Inside Story, #1)

by Maria V Snyder

[Amber]

Having never read any of Maria V Snyder’s works in the past, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I bought it from Amazon. However, what I found was an epic dystopian novel packed with a fast paced plot and fun, interesting and well developed characters.

The world in which the novel is set was brilliantly described by Snyder, and I felt so absorbed in the book it was as if I was actually there in the Inside, living through Trella’s eyes. There was history behind everything, and I loved delving deeper and deeper and learning so much about the scrubs and the uppers. The division of the classes was brilliantly done, along with the descriptions of the levels and just the Inside in general.

Trella, our main protagonist, is a scrub who lives on the lower levels, earning her living through cleaning the pipes that are all over the Inside. She’s a fantastic main character, I really loved her voice and her personality, and I felt she was the perfect choice to lead a rebellion against those who control her. Usually I dislike female lead characters as they tend to have a very annoying voice, and are extremely whiney. However, Trella has neither of those equalities which is why I loved her.

As with every teenage novel, Trella also has a love interest whose name is Riley. Their connection is clear from the start, and Riley was a great character and was fun to read about.

There were plenty of secondary characters, which would normally be overwhelming, but Snyder pulls it off very well and I found it easy to differentiate between all of the minor characters, and they each had their own distinctive personality. My favourite secondary character was Jacy, and although we didn’t see as much of him as I would have liked, I was kind of ‘shipping him and Trella. *Grin*

The ending was a huge surprise, which I did not see coming, and it left me wanting so much more! Luckily I had a galley of the second book, Outside In, waiting for me to open and start reading!