Genre Swap Saturday is a semi regular post (not every week) hosted by All Things Urban Fantasy, that will highlight books outside of our focused genre that I think will appeal to you. Feel free to use this on your site, just link me please.
Every Genre Swap Saturday book suggestion will include:- Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might like this book:
- Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might not like this book:
Inside Out Maria V. Snyder
*Disclosure – I received this book courtesy of Harlequin Teen
Book Description
Keep Your Head Down. Don't Get Noticed. Or Else.I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. One of thousands who work in the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. The Trava family who rules our world from their spacious Upper levels wants us to be docile and obedient, like sheep. To insure we behave, they send the Pop Cops to police us.
So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? Not like it's all that dangerous--the only neck at risk is my own.
Until a lower level prophet claims a Gateway to Outside exists. And guess who he wants to steal into the Upper levels to get the proof? You’re right. Me. I alone know every single duct, pipe, corridor, shortcut, hole and ladder of Inside. It’s suicide plain and simple. But guess who can’t let a challenge like that go unanswered? Right again. Me.
I should have just said no...
Review:
INSIDE OUT is the perfect example (at least for me anyway) of why you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover. This cover didn’t do anything for me, in fact I thought the cover model looked like Miley Cyrus which really didn’t do anything for me. Once again my shallowness almost had me missing out on an excellent book.
In a sentence, INSIDE OUT is 1984 meets The Hunger Games. And if you’ve been living under a rock somewhere and haven’t read The Hunger Games, the comparison is a huge compliment.
Seventeen year old Trella is a scrub, in the Dystopian world she and the rest of humanity live in called Inside. What exactly is Inside? No one really knows. Trella has explored it more than most and she’s concluded that it is a massive cubed city enclosed on all sides by steel. But Inside isn’t nearly as important as the mythical Outside, especially to Lowers like Trella.
In the novel INSIDE OUT, the population is divided into two distinct classes: The privileged Uppers, who enjoy unimagined freedoms like the ability to marry, parent a child, and even live in semi-private quarters. The Lowers (proles for 1984 fans) are essentially slaves forced provide manual labor until they die. They sleep in giant, crammed bunkers, are not allowed to raise any children they bear (if a women tries to keep a child or abort it, the authorities take the child and breed the mother until she becomes infertile), and if even a hint of dissention arises they are ‘recycled’ into fertilizer. It’s no wonder the Lower’s long for Outside.
That’s all I’m comfortable with revealing in order to avoid spoilers. I’ll just say that INSIDE OUT will infuriate you because of the social injustices that occur and thoroughly entertain you till the last page. If you haven’t tried Dystopian fiction yet (and you should), this is an excellent place to start. Outside In, the sequel, is due out in 2011.
Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might like this book:
- The world building is excellent
- The main character has an as yet not fully realized potential
- A sweet, yet subtle romantic plot line
Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might not like this book:
- Nothing supernatural here
- Some scifi elements
- This is a straight up Dystopian work.
Click HERE to read an excerpt from INSIDE OUT.
Product Details
- Reading level: Ages 9-12
- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Harlequin; Original edition (April 1, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 037321006X
- ISBN-13: 978-0373210060
More by Maria V. Snyder
Study Series 1. Poison Study (2005)
2. Magic Study (2006)
3. Fire Study (2008)
Glass Series
1. Storm Glass (2009)
2. Sea Glass (2009)
3. Spy Glass (2010)
Have a title you’d like to be featured in an upcoming Genre Swap Saturday? Contact me.
