Icons: Review

Synopsis:

Your heart beats only with their permission.

Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.

Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid.

She's different. She survived. Why?

When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy.

Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions -- which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses -- may actually be their greatest strengths.

Bestselling author Margaret Stohl delivers the first book in a heart-pounding series set in a haunting new world where four teens must piece together the mysteries of their pasts -- in order to save the future.

***

I guess I can't get into any May releases until May 21, huh? Icons doesn't disappoint me. But it definitely isn't one of my favorite reads. It's like there's something more to this book but I just can't find something that fills up the vacancies of whatever that is supposed to be there. Although I know perfectly what's going on in the book, my emotions just refuse to attach completely to the book. Sure, I know what's exciting and what's not, but I don't actually feel anything strong.

Reading Margaret Stohl's book is actually quite interesting, since that I read Caster Chronicles series which is written by her and Kami Garcia, it's nice to see her strike out on her own and develop a dystopian new world destroyed by aliens known as Icons. It's a brilliant concept because I'm a fan of alien-apocalypse (until The 5th Wave nearly destroys it). Mysterious yet so close to our characters. And you're raised to believe that nothing is strong enough to hold against them. A really terrifying new world. Just what I love.

But the characters... hmm, not so much. First is Dol. I don't hate her, because there's simply nothing to hate. She's trusting and self-sacrificing. But other than that, I don't think there's any other thing stronger to make her likeable to me. She's really flat to me. Ro, on the other hand, is a strong character. I like him, but there are times that I'm annoyed by his recklessness and rage because he fights without even thinking. Lucas... well, he's a little bit complicated. I don't hate him, either. One hand he's a undesirable character and on the other he's a nice boy. And neither of these are strong enough to make him an obvious character, despite his constant appearance. Tima has her past, but I won't judge her that soon because I feel like there are something more about her that we don't know yet.

The plot is pretty smooth. Nothing too twisted, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. The ending is quite nice, but I can sense (Spoiler!) a love triangle blooming [groans] (End of spoiler). It's different from joining the resistance like many endings from many dystopian books. That's a nice thing because I'm tired of "oh, you are in danger and you run into the resistance and rebel against the government/aliens/whatever that's making the world bad" . But, like Reboot, the ending is too much of a rush to me because I think there can be more twists when it's near the epic part of the book. 

The only thing I like very much besides the settings is Margaret Stohl's writing. I can see more clearly how her writing skills are because... well, Caster Chronicles is co-written by two authors and the short story written by Margaret Stohl in Shards and Ashes is not enough to show her real skills. It's almost poetic and very emotional in one way (but I can't feel it. Not really. So it's my own problem then). I really like this quote, check this out:

This is your sorrow as much as mine. Your love, your rage, your fear. These are our gifts, and our gift to you.

See? Almost poetic. :) Although I think I can find better quotes than that...

I think I will read the sequel, but just because I enjoy her writing and I want to see how things will turn out.

Rating: 7/10

*By the way, do you know the book was originally called The Book of Sorrow? You will find out why in the book ;)