So we've already had a very favorable review. I figured I should follow up with a book that was quite possibly the worst thing I've ever read. This is more of a recommendation to not waste your time or money on this dumpster fire of a book.
Sleepers (The Swarm Trilogy Book One) by Megg Jensen
Overall Rating (3 out of 10)
:star: :star: :star:
General Plot (2 out of 10)
:star: :star:
Characters (2 out of 10)
:star: :star:
World Building (3 out of 10)
:star: :star: :star:
Look at the cover of this book for me. Envision what you would expect from a plot in this book. Did you imagine some kind of goth, futuristic abilities-wielding plot? WRONG. It's set in what seems to be the equivalent of 16th century Britain, complete with chamber pots and sword fighting. Yeah there are abilities, but they are so poorly explained, that I'm not even sure if they count.
The story follows Lianne, a highly impressionable and idiotic young girl. As a young girl, she was adopted from a country called Dalagan, which by the description of it's people, seems to be Scottish. They are ruled by Fithia, the country she's currently in, as a maid to the Queen, her best friend. As with most heroines in fantasy, she's been taught to fight, secretly, by her "boyfriend", another Dalagan boy, Kellan. There's a third Dalagan boy, Bryden, who got crippled as a child. They used to be friends, but he got sulky and petulant after the accident, so they stopped talking. There's an awkward, testosterone-filled aggression between Kellan and Bryden, so you can see the love triangle developing from a mile away.
In almost every way possible, this book is both filled with cliches, and somehow also wildly out of control in it's plot twists. They aren't shocking or surprising in any way, just straight up fucking ridiculous. Lianne somehow NEVER seems capable of making her own decisions; they're usually made by whatever boy she happens to be making out with at the time. Kellan is set up to be a bad guy almost immediately, which you can sense from the fact that he's EXTREMELY controlling of her. But she's too stupid to realize that's not a good thing.
Honestly, I have zero interest in following this series further, as I am just baffled by what's happened in this book. The ending is just confusing, there's so much going on and so little explained well, and the characters are so god-awful, I can't handle reading anymore about them. It really reads as if there are no "good guys", so you have no idea where you want this book to proceed, or who you want to win in the end.
Also, I really can't handle the syntax used for speaking in this book. It's like the author set it up to be 16th century British, then decided some of the characters can just speak in current-day slang. Calling people their "boyfriends", saying "Yeah". This is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves in books. Pick a syntax. Stick with it. It's not hard.