Wren Weiss, daughter of Reproduction Enforcers, lives on genetically segregated Genova Island. Her hopes and dreams hinge on one test, the Assessment, administered to girls when they become fertile.
Wren is determined to beat the test, but her worldview is shattered when a mysterious boy exposes her darkest secret and convinces her that something sinister lies beneath the polished surface of Genova Island.
Before Wren can get the answers she desperately seeks, government officials barge into her home, rip her away from her family, and transport her to a top-secret location called Ovation where egg harvesting is a sport and, to her devastation, she is the newest competitor.
As violence mounts in Ovation, Wren learns of a nefarious plot that endangers her family. She must unravel government conspiracies to discover her true identity and leverage the secrets hidden in her DNA to protect those she loves before it's too late.
An action-packed dystopian thriller with unpredictable twists, breathtaking confessions, and gut-wrenching betrayals. The Handmaid's Tale meets Divergent.
I loved the idea of this novel, but I felt that the execution left something to be desired.
It managed to give too much and too little information at the same time. For instance, I'm still not sure how the towns are arranged - I think Clairemont is better than Hillcrest is better than the Valley, but I'm not certain? - but I know every detail of how Wren feels about Fritz. There's a point quite late on where she lists all the things she's scared of, but apart from one I had never noticed any of those things in the story. There are a lot of coincidences driving the plot, and things happen very quickly, with some periods of time skipped over. And, of course, there's an instalove plot, which is practically required nowadays for YA fic. The novel is set on Cuba, or rather future Cuba, and there's a point where a character says they've travelled hundreds of miles for answers. Ok, Cuba is big enough for that. But they've travelled all that distance on ziplines. Ziplines that have presumably not been maintained, because people aren't supposed to be able to leave their districts. They zipline for more than an hour. Plus, the ziplines run in both directions, so I don't understand what's propelling them. Ziplines tilt down, that's how you travel on them. It's a really clever, inventive way of getting around, but it just didn't make much sense to me.
I was also a little surprised when Dr Hahn announced his plan to wipe out men, in a room full of men including his three sons, and expected no resistance. A spectacular blind spot from a very smart man.
However, I did think the story was really clever, and there were some good twists, especially at the end. There were some really good call backs to things that happened early in the novel and plenty of foreshadowing for the ending. I'm interested to see what happens in the next volume and I'll be keeping an eye out for it.
The Scarlet Harvest publishes on the 24th of March, 2021. I was given a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
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