Adaline by Denise Kawaii

Adaline by Denise Kawaii
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

( I received this book free from the Author through Goodreads group [Shut Up And Read] {Read It & Reap} for my honest review )

★★★★1/2

I'm awed at this. There's so much wrong with the world inside this book, but it’s not a bad kind of wrong. The sameness, the lack of freedom, and the constant hovering of evil robot nurses that will spray you with sleeping gas if you aren't a good boy, is unsettling, and for me, angering.

The structure is complex, and like the boys, you are learning about a place that doesn’t make sense.

62 is different in the sameness, with the help of 72 he learns to embrace it his differences, but it's not easy. Being told over and over again, since you're an infant that being different isn't being a good boy, has 62 struggling with foreign emotions, dreams, that he knows nothing about and doesn't have the knowledge to control it, or to properly understand it.

It’s straight up behaviour modification. We do it with dogs and cats every day. My cat jumps on the counter; I spray him with the water bottle; he gets down. After a few times, he doesn’t do it, I just need to show him the bottle.

All the boys are scared of the sleeping fog. As soon as the nurse’s sense that there is an anomaly, they get sprayed. It doesn’t take very long for the boys to learn their places, and to be good boys.

Be a good boy, don’t move when sleeping, don’t be different, don’t be a bad boy.

I’m in with 62, those nurses need to be ripped apart and melted.

I felt confided about 62, at times I wanted to smack him and others times I wanted to hug him. It was frustrating watching him struggle with normal emotions we have and known out whole life.

This book did reminds me of The Giver. It has similar elements but Adaline is more extreme and twisted.

Like being gassed(fogged) for having trouble sleeping. If that was me, I'd get fogged every night. I'd probably be the first kid to be taking away for being, unwell.

The only thing I can’t say that I didn’t connect with or didn’t like was the writing tone. It was flat and dull. 62 did liven it up when he started to dream, and feel anger, but before those parts it was boring. Don’t get me wrong the writing is on point and this book gripped my attention from the start, but that tone, it was an offset for me. So unlike other books that grab me, and keep me locked in its world for hours at a time. This one, had me for short spurts causing me to put down, and come back. But again not an overly bad thing. It gave me time to process that intriguing world that 62 was animated into.

I was extremely interest in the class sessions, and the group test. I wanted to learn more about Adaline and how it came to be. Or if its a part of our world.

I highly recommend this book, its unique world and structure, will have you hooked and wanting to learn all you can about this all-men, clone bunker and how it came to be.

Happy reading

- Emily