Review: Outside
This second book in the "Shattered Worlds" dystopian collection is a mixture of great ideas and disappointing results. This story alternates between two stories, one told by Riley -- a 16 year old girl -- and the other told by a woman named Eleanor. Riley's story takes place roughly 16 1/2 years after terrorist attacks cause the government to collapse and people segregate themselves behind perimeter fences and in compounds. Eleanor's story starts before the attacks and tells the story of what actually happened. These two stories are tied together, but unfortunately they aren't of equal interest... Eleanor's story is the secondary story that receives less space in the book, but it is more realistic and well-developed than Riley's story.
Riley's story starts with the death of her younger sister. In her quest to find the murderer, she and the neighbor boy decided to steal an armored vehicle, pack it full of blackmarket goods, and travel around hoping to somehow track down a single person who is on the run. How they think this will work, I have no idea. Why they didn't manage to get themselves killed in the first day, I still can't figure out. In their adventures, Riley and Luc should have died at least three times, twice by naively believing in the lies of strangers. Their whole travel story is what I have the biggest problem with... When traveling through a dangerous area away from your secure neighborhood, you'd think that you would be wary of other people you meet. But no, they get suckered in more than once and let their defenses down enough that they almost lose their lives and they do lose almost all of their weapons and trade goods. And yet they still manage to escape.
Eleanor's story covers a longer time period and provides the majority of the actual plot. I found myself skimming Riley's story to get to the sections about Eleanor. Unfortunately, this book is ultimately centered around romance. Instead of giving more history of what live is actually like for the people living outside of the perimeter (or even inside some of the more corrupt compounds) we spend more of the time reading about two spoiled children driving around with plenty of food and weapons while Riley thinks about her blushing cheeks too many times. By the time you get done with the book, you realize that the entire plot is essentially based off of a romance and the complications of a selfish woman who ignored her husband and children to carry on an affair. The unlikely romance between Riley and Luc feels forced as well.. they start out as friends and then all of the sudden Riley has those blushing cheeks.
I'm not going to say that a dystopian novel can't have romance... but romance should not be the main plot point of any dystopian novel if you want to have a enjoyable read for anyone above the tweens. While the beginning of this book showed promise, ultimately the weakness of the plot and the ridiculousness of the "adventure" ended up ruining Outside for me. I give this book three stars only because Eleanor's story was interesting enough to keep me reading until the end.
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