Not To Be Trusted In a Bookstore With a Credit Card

Summary:

For Lucian “Lucky” Spark, Recruitment Day means the Establishment, a totalitarian government, will force him to become one of five Recruits competing to join the ruthless Imposer task force. Each Recruit participates in increasingly difficult and violent military training for a chance to advance to the next level. Those who fail must choose an “Incentive”—a family member—to be brutally killed. If Lucky fails, he’ll have to choose death for his only living relative: Cole, his four-year-old brother.

Lucky will do everything he can to keep his brother alive, even if it means sacrificing the lives of other Recruits’ loved ones. What Lucky isn’t prepared for is his undeniable attraction to the handsome, rebellious Digory Tycho. While Lucky and Digory train together, their relationship grows. But daring to care for another Recruit in a world where love is used as the ultimate weapon is extremely dangerous. As Lucky soon learns, the consequences can be deadly...

4/5 Stars

This book was really good but also really frustrating. The setting was fairly well developed, in the beginning of the book you get a good idea of how bad the conditions are in the world. The explanation of the government is a little rushed but you get the main idea of how things work, although it's not very well explained about why things are the way they are.

The characters were interesting and their stories were explained, even if a little rushed at times. Some of the side characters could have been fleshed out more but the two main characters were explained nicely. Only one or two characters had what could be considered character development but they all added something interesting to the story.

Some of the descriptions of violent acts in the book were a little graphic but there's nothing wrong with that. The romance was amazing. It's probably the one thing that I adored about this book. The main character is in love with a boy and the fact that they're the same gender is not even an issue. In fact same sex marriage is mentioned as if it is perfectly acceptable in the society they live in. I loved how much of a non-issue it was.

By the time the book was over I wanted to stab someone (the author) for making me cry but I will still go on to read the next book in the series. Hopefully it will make things better.