Starters: Review

Title: Starters

Author: Lissa Price

Release Date: March 2012

Published By: Delacorte Books

Pages: 352

Goodreads Rating: 3.91 stars

Review: When the Spore Wars wipe out everyone between the ages of 20 and 60, Callie, her brother Tyler, and her friend Michael live as squatters, where they could killed any second. Callie's only hope is renting her body to Prime Destinations, allowing the elderly to inhabit her body for weeks at a time. But when the neurochip they implanted malfunctions, she discovers that her renter wants to do more than just party - and that Prime Destinations' plans are more than she could ever have imagined.

There are plenty of dystopian novels out there that deal with similar concepts as STARTERS, such as a war or disease wiping out a large portion of the population, but I'd never read anything that featured something like Prime Destinations. The idea of Starters (young people) renting out their bodies to Enders (the older generation) was both fascinating and horrifying, and although I thought it was a little unrealistic, it was interesting to see how the author dealt with the dynamic of only the young and the old surviving.

Probably one of my favorite aspects of this novel were the plot twists. In particular, I was very thrown off with what happened with Blake, especially since I had thought that it was something predictable - how wrong was I! These really spiced up the book and kept me guessing throughout the story. Dystopians are sometimes rather formulaic, so something like this ended up being quite refreshing for me to read.

However, while the plot in general was woven skillfully, I did wish there was more development in other areas. Specifically, I was hoping there would be more concerning Michael. That could have been an interesting dynamic for the author to go more in-depth with, and I was disappointed that only the surface of his relationship to Callie was explored.

All in all, STARTERS was an intriguing and original dystopian novel with a fantastic concept and numerous unpredictable plot twists. I wish there had been a little more development in places such as Callie's friendship with Michael, but overall this is a solid book that I would recommend to fans of dystopian fiction.