Slated (Slated, #1)

by Teri Terry

[Stephanie]

I had high hopes for Slated, but it fell short of those expectations. While I did enjoy the actual idea of the story, I had a very hard time connecting with the story and the characters.

The one thing that really kept me from connecting with the story was the writing. There were a lot of short sentences and sentence fragments that would throw me off. Like:

"Surgery. Like being Slated.
The bell rings. End of class.
'Hand your sheet in on your way out!' he says. Everyone shuffles about, putting books away."
– page 247

or

"'Did you learn what you wanted to know.'
My stomach twists. She knows; somehow she knows. That I looked at her computer. I stay silent, gut twisting in fear. Imagine what the Lorders will make of that."
– page 263

It threw me off every time. I understand that Kyla probably thinks like that in her head since she was slated and all, but it was still hard for me at times. I also felt like there wasn't a lot happening. A lot of it was Kyla trying to figure out everyone and what she can and can't do. There was a lot of things mentioned, but I felt like there wasn't a lot happening to actually get some answers. The Lorders are taking people, and people are disappearing, and Kyla wants to know why, but if she shows any interest, she's risking her life. So Kyla thinks about how the government could possibly be evil, but nobody ever does anything about it.

Another thing is that I had a lot of these 'mysteries' figured out. A lot of them are very obvious and it kind of ruined the story for me. Like Kyla having these strange dreams. It's so obvious that they are her old memories from before she was slated, but since everyone thinks that it's impossible to remember anything after being slated, Kyla is convinced that they're just a figment of her imagination, which got annoying after a while.

I also was not feeling the romance. Kyla and Ben are both slated, and they usually run together to keep their levos up (the levos are wristbands that every slated wears and is connected to their brain so it can monitor their emotions and if they get too upset or angry it will knock them out and potentially kill them if it gets too low). Kyla was attracted to Ben from the beginning, which I can understand since Kyla is different from all the other slated's and can actually think for herself, unlike Ben who is a normal slated and would smile through a crisis. I was not convinced with this relationship. It just didn't feel right since Ben couldn't really think for himself unless he was running. So I don't know, I was just not into the relationship.

The ending also turned me off a little bit. The last few pages we get a little bit of answers, so little that I was completely confused and had no idea where it came from or what was going on, and then it just ends. I definitely didn't see it coming, which I guess is a good thing, but it didn't seem like a good thing to me at the time.

The thing is, I was really interested in the idea of Slated, it was just the way it was executed that kept me from loving it. I am a big fan of dystopias like this with the evil government and everything, but this one didn't work out for me.