The New Dark by Lorraine Thomson

I was disappointed in this one.  Another grab on Netgalley that didn't pan out quite they way I was hoping.  Picking new books is tough.  When I have high hopes for a story from the synopses and it doesn't deliver on the premise advertised, I find it very hard to support the novel.

This novel plus The Queen of All Crows really put me in a bad place when trying to write helpful, objective reviews.  Even when I dislike a book, I try to remain objective that others may find what I consider faults to be entertaining or essential to their reading experience.  

Now that I have recuperated with some very excellent reading--reviews on those in the next couple days--I feel ready to write about The New Dark. 

This is a book about an EMP future.  There are no electronics, there is no grid; there are only mutants.  That was the hook that made me pick it off the "shelf."

I am really attracted to the idea of a world without the grid.  I gravitate towards books that have this premise.  Then the author threw in mutants.  How very X-Men.  Plenty of room to make a book impossible to put down.  Except that didn't happen.  I never really made a connection with the story and didn't feel the need to invest my time in it.

Then Sorrel comes across the Free People.  Wow.  I could be reading it completely wrong, but I really just did not like this section.  I felt like the story had stepped away from itself and onto a soapbox.  The reader was left there to wallow in the politics.  We also end up in a major metropolis run on slave labor.  Mutant and human race relations abound.  How many tropes can we shove in one manuscript?

Unfortunately, the story suffered from mediocre editing.  Maybe in ten years they can get a new editor on it and release a reboot edition.  While they're there, they can eliminate a few of the extraneous YA stereotypes.  Best of luck to any who go forward and try this novel.  I hope you find something to enlighten you.