Book Review: Julia Karr's "XVI"

Nina Oberon's life is pretty normal: she hangs out with her best friend, Sandy, and their crew, goes to school, plays with her little sister, Dee. But Nina is 15. And like all girls she'll receive a Governing Council-ordered tattoo on her 16th birthday. XVI. Those three letters will be branded on her wrist, announcing to all the world - even the most predatory of men - that she is ready for sex. Considered easy prey by some, portrayed by the Media as sluts who ask for attacks, becoming a "sex-teen" is Nina's worst fear. That is, until right before her birthday, when Nina's mom is brutally attacked. With her dying breaths, she reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her past - one that destroys everything Nina thought she knew. Now, alone but for her sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother's killer.

This book was suggested to me by a follower on Novel Nerds and took me a while to figure out if it was worth buying. I read the synopsis online on Amazon and whilst it seemed interesting, nothing really grabbed me enough to want to buy it really badly.

I did eventually end up buying it as a side purchase, but as my initial thoughts suggest I didn't fall irrevocably in love. The synopsis pretty much tells you what happens in 70% of the book, which is a shame because I had hoped for a lot more but on the other hand the book is definitely a quick read at 272 pages.

I enjoyed the romance aspect of the novel - first loves are always adorable to read! It was especially interesting since as you can tell from the synopsis; any non-family relationship between a teenage girl and boy is an extremely big deal in the world of XVI; especially for Nina who is completely against turning into a traditional sex-obsessed sixteen year old girl. I also liked the use of "media" and "advertisements" as brain washing instruments used by the Government. It's not something unique since a lot of writer's use the media as a form of control in dystopian fiction, but I felt like it worked really well here.

On the other hand, I felt like there were too many coincidences in the book. The problems in the book all got solved ridiculously easily and because of this the events in the book all happened rapidly. I guess rapid pacing should be seen as a good thing, but it annoyed me because I felt like the author could have spent time on telling us more about the other characters. I was also surprised by the ending - which I hated. Everything happened in a matter of pages and whilst I just found out that XVI will have a sequel called Truth (which will be released January 19th) I'm still not happy. Most of the loose ends were tied in the ending, leaving nothing for your imagination whatsoever. I'm guessing the author will be introducing brand new problems into the sequel but I don't really see the need for it considering the ending.

All in all, I'd recommend the book if you're bored and want to kill a few hours without thinking too much. I'd also suggest buying it from Amazon because in no way would I have been happy to pay full price for it.

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