This was a little difficult to get into at first due to the almost complete lack of knowledge of the world the characters inhabited. It quickly improved, but just as I had invested emotion in the characters, it ended - and I say ended rather than concluded, because there was no conclusion at all. It may very well be that this is part of a series of books but even so I'd rather that I had been left with a few more answers and a few less questions at the end of The Line.

Graded By: Erin
BFF Charm: Meh
Swoonworthy Scale: 4
Talky Talk: 1984
Bonus Factors: Orchids, Indigenous People, Kickass Gram
Relationship Status: Boring First Date, But Then He Sent Me Flowers . . . .

Read the full book report here.

The reason I picked up this book was because of the cover. It's cool! And then I read the summary and it actually sounded good. But I'm glad I got this at a Borders going-out-of-business sale, because it's just not worth it.

There is a LOT of info dumping within the first four chapters. And some books work with third person narration, but this one doesn't. I think I would have been more into it if it was first person. Nothing really good happens until halfway through, when she finally meets the boy across the line. But even then, it really wasn't that exciting to read. There was nothing hooking about this book... except for it's cover. I would have given this a 1.5, but I rounded up.

Good premise, poor writing.

Also, not enough plot for a whole book. Should have combined this with it's sequel.

sinceramente? não precisava de uma continuação

First read of the new year...woot woot!

I liked the setting and the characters. What I didn't like was the predictability. And Rachel

Spoiler

crossing the line to help a stranger just couldn't convince me as believable.

1.5
Nothing really happens in this book. It's probably most of what I found so irritating about it. It dragged on, and when I had finally convinced myself that it was worth it to keep going because something had to happen, it ended. Not pleased. At all.

Interesting premise. But plot is poorly structured, lots of "stops" for plot exposition, language that changed and makes little sense, jumping between young and adult points of view was awkward, and it does not end!

THE LINE is almost all pure set-up for something more to come. It made for a rather dull read. The concept is intriguing but the execution left me wanting more.

The story takes place almost entirely on this property that contained a mansion of some kind, a guest house, and a greenhouse. There are orchids in the greenhouse that Rachel helps take care of, so required by Ms Moore, the crotchety property owner who’s obviously hiding something. It’s told in third person limited and alternates POVs between Rachel, her mother, and once or twice, Ms Moore but it’s told in this storyteller sort of way that really detached me from everything that was going on. I had a hard time pinpointing Rachel’s age because she came off so incredibly young and naive. She comes off as maybe 11 or 12 but I think she may be closer to 18 based on her mother’s conversations about college. There was just such a distance there that nothing really stuck with me.

There was a good chunk of ‘as you know, Bob” infodumping going on in regard to how the US ended up in its current situation in the guise of a pop quiz sort of situation. What really irked me about the world, though, was the terminology. It was just so . . . lazy. There was a corder, as in REcorder. Instead of the United States it’s the Unified States. There were multiple instances of this and I just couldn’t help rolling my eyes at each one. It’s different without effort and that really bothers me. As someone who puts a lot of stock in world-building, even when you’re deconstructing today’s society, put some freakin’ effort into it.

Not a whole lot really happens in this first book of the series. It’s just setting up what’s to come in subsequent books and it feels like all this information I got in THE LINE could have been dispersed in other books. Plus there wasn’t a lot of room for Rachel to grow as a character. She’s so tightly controlled by her mother and Ms Moore that she doesn’t have the opportunity to grow until the very end when she’s left to fend for herself. And by this time I’m already lost to the book.

This is a quiet book that I really haven’t heard anything about. I can’t even remember reading much about it when it came out so I don’t know if it gets better or not. But THE LINE was lackluster and kind of a let-down as far as the blurb goes. The moment in the blurb about finding the message? Happens about 85% of the way into the book. So . . . yeah. All set-up, no action, very little real story.

2.5