Saturday, January 26, 2013

{Top Ten + Review + Giveaway} Daynight by Megan Thomason


Stopping By Soon!
 
 
Top Ten Dystopians
 
"This was a great one... forced me to go back and re-read some classics I'd read a really, really long time ago to make sure they warranted my top-ten list (they did and I loved re-reading them...well, except A Clockwork Orange, which I didn't have the time or patience to get through again--not to take away from its brilliance)."
 
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
1984 by George Orwell
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Wool by Hugh Howey
Divergent by Veronica Roth
 
 
Dashley's Possessed By
 
Daynight by Megan Thomason
Publication Date: November 26th 2012
Genre: YA Dystopian
Pages: 324
 
 
Summary
 
Meet The Second Chance Institute (SCI): Earth’s benevolent non-profit by day, Thera’s totalitarian regime by night. Their motto: Because Everyone Deserves a Second Chance™. Reality: the SCI subjects Second Chancers to strict controls and politically motivated science experiments like Cleaving—forced lifetime union between two people who have sex.

Meet Kira Donovan. Fiercely loyal, overly optimistic, and ensnared by the promise of a full-ride college scholarship, Kira signs the SCI Recruit contract to escape memories of a tragedy that left her boyfriend and friends dead.

Meet Blake Sundry. Bitter about being raised in Exile and his mother’s death, Blake’s been trained to infiltrate and destroy the SCI. Current barrier to success? His Recruit partner—Miss Goody Two Shoes Kira Donovan.

Meet Ethan Darcton. Born with a defective heart and resulting inferiority complex, Ethan’s forced to do his SCI elite family’s bidding. Cleave-worthy Kira Donovan catches his eye, but the presiding powers give defect-free Blake Sundry first dibs.

Full of competing agendas, romantic entanglements, humor, twists and turns, daynight is Megan Thomason’s debut young adult dystopian novel and first in the daynight series.
 
 
My thoughts:
 
Just  forewarning, I am hoping this will not turn into a rant of things I am confused about in the book but I can’t promise it won’t turn into that but I’ll try not to. ^_^
Okay, so this books genre is YA Dystopian, am I correct? Yes! Well, I honestly do not see where the Dystopian fits in with this story line!?! When I think Dystopian I think something big has happen to the states or better yet….the world. Like in The Hunger Games, Matched, Under The Never Sky, Wither, Divergent and this is just but a few of them.
In this book, nothing and I mean nothing has happen to the states or the world. Where Kira, one of the mc, lives it’s just like what it is today. Kids going to school, parents going to work, people working hard in life so they can survive in this pretty veil of a dog eat dog world. So I am honestly a little bit confused to where the author decided this was a Dystopian. It is more like YA Science Fiction.
Now let’s talk characters:
 Kira, is the Female MC, in the beginning you see a little bit of her background but then we move onto the big plot line- her signing up for the The Second Chance Institute (a.k.a SCI) as this will help with a better future for a college. They really want her and they’ll go to extremes just to have her, and I mean to the extremes. What they do is seriously unbelievable and makes me have questions into why she is so important (okay, I know why but I don’t see the big picture of, why?).
Anyways, she was an okay character. I liked reading about her and seeing her journey with the SCI. She of course falls in love with two guys but in the end I am happy with whom she ends up with! <3 She’s tough, stubborn, and she is one to ask questions herself which I am happy about.
Ethan, is one of the Male MC, I loved him the moment he came in play. I think I fell a little bit for him or was it that some of the sweet romance scenes made me think of how my boyfriend is with me *shrugs* nonetheless, I adored him. He has daddy issues (actually, almost all the characters have somewhat of parent issues, which is a great twist when you read it), a supposed heart defect, but no matter what he is still oh so sweet. He isn’t a fan of how his parents work about Garden City and their plans of creating the parents of Thera. He has morals as they seem to not have any.
Okay, let’s move onto the last MC- Blake. He is the second guy Kira falls in love with and the other choice to being her partner for life (so is Ethan, by the way). He is a former exile, his father is a rebellion which he helps out with, he is an okay guy but he never really had Kira stand first over his rebellion, so he was a bit mean to her throughout the book. I don’t have much to say about him *shrugs*.
Plot:       
I felt like it was a great concept, however, I am not a big fan of how it went about. I was confused for most of the book. I have more questions than answers. My first problem with this book was it being called a Dystopian when it is not. I honestly do not see the big picture!?! Like, why should I really hate these citizens of Garden City. Yes, I started to hate them with what they did to Kira when she refused to go back to this world but that’s it. I don’t see why Blake should hate them besides that his parents were exiled (I think it’s just more his father’s hate than his, again daddy issues), and I don’t see why having pure original blood lines are important besides them being able to travel to Earth and back to Earth’s sister planet Thera. Other than that, what makes them so special and why do they want so many pure blooded children and I mean so many.
Overall, I’m just confused of the main picture. I honestly don’t see where the author was going with this. But I do know if I had an actually physical copy of this book I would have devoured it. It had its moments of being an attention grabber, it had its sweet romance scenes, it did make you ache for the characters, the background scenes were great and came in when needed be, the head citizens of Garden City were great at being mysterious and made this world very suspicious, the wanting of people being Cleaved (turn into life partners) was creepy. All this makes me want to read the second, plus, I want answers!
It was an okay read but again…..it just left me with no answers and even more confused on what the hell the big picture is.   
This picture is for Tristan.....what a creep and I don't see why he was Kira's boyfriend in the first place.....
 
 
 

You may like it just try not to read anything else with it so you can concentrate on it
 
 
Now, here is an awesome Giveaway!!!
 
Good luck to all!!
 


 
 
 


Megan Thomason lives in paradise aka San Diego, CA with her husband and five children. A former software manager, Megan vastly prefers writing twisted tales to business, product, and marketing plans. When she isn't typing away on her laptop, she's reading books on her phone—over 600 in the last year—or attending to the needs of her family. Megan’s fluent in sarcasm, could potentially benefit from a 12-step program for road rage, struggles with a Hot Tamales addiction, loves world travel & fast cars and hates paperwork & being an insomniac. Daynight is Megan's first published novel, but fourth written one. 
 
Happy Reading Everybody!
 
 

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review, Ashley! I appreciate you reading and for the honest review! I'll just address your issue about it being a dystopia. By definition a dystopia is a 'state in which the conditions of life are extremely bad as from deprivation or oppression or terror; a work of fiction describing an imaginary place where life is extremely bad because of deprivation or oppression or terror.' I definitely think that fits :). Doesn't have to be on Earth or post-apocalyptic (that is just one kind of dystopia and one that has been heavily written about... I chose to do a different, fresh take on it). And I assure you the SCI has major plans for Earth that will be played out in the next books. The whole point of the SCI's work on Thera is to test political concepts to push on Earth. But you are also correct that daynight is not *just* a dystopia. It definitely pulls in elements of scifi, romance, and fantasy.

    Again, thanks for reading! I appreciate you hosting daynight!

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  2. @Megan- Ah I see, well I like that definition and am glad you went the different route then, haha. Thanks for clearing it up sinse I am so used to the other way ^_^.

    Well, I can't wait for book two and I can kinda see the political point of view ^_^. I'm glad to see you liked my honesty cause I was afraid of you hating on it cause I was so honest! It's sad when some authors are like that.

    Thanks for not being like that and thanks for stopping by! It was fun to host it for you! ^_^

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  3. No hate here :). There is *never* anything wrong with a good critical viewpoint. That's how writers get better. Reader impressions trump writer intentions, so it's important to get lots of different impressions. That's different from 'hating' or 'trolling' where people give bad ratings with or without reading the book with no explanation. I'm not a fan of that (who would be?) :). Have a great weekend, Ashley!

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  4. @Megan- haha, yes, you have a great point of view Megan! I fully agree with you ^_^.

    Have a great weekend too!

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