Slated by Teri Terry
Can you know the truth if your mind has been wiped?
I came across this series for the school library and new it
was a must have and for me a must read.
The science fiction based plot really hooked me and although it was
another dystopian story (seriously they are everywhere) the blurb suggested to
me that it was not really the overriding feature. Thankfully the blurb was more
than correct. This is definitely a thriller. I was hooked and devoured the book
in an evening.
The story starts with us meeting Kyla, she has been Slated,
and therefore remembers nothing of who she is or in fact was. This Slated
procedure is used to give criminals a second chance and as a part of their rehabilitation
they cannot remember who they were so are theoretically less likely to follow
the path they did before. They are fitted with a Levo device and their emotions
are monitored to ensure they do not get angry, violent or even the slightest
bit tense. If their levels drop too low they will be knocked out by the Levo to
make sure they can cause no harm. The problem with Kyla is that she is
different, she isn’t compliant and docile like the rest of the Slated and she
has nightmares that seem to be memories from her past. No Slated should
remember anything so why does Kyla, and what does it all mean? Well it
basically means that Kyla is amazing. The more Kyla begins to see in her dreams
the more he life begins to change. When she sees her face on a missing persons
list she begins to question what she had actually done to deserve her Slating.
The more she questions the more trouble follows. There is a romance element to the storyline
but I personally felt this was not really necessary and did not need to be ‘love’.
I would have preferred if Kyla’s relationship with Ben had just been a particular
strong friendship I think it would have added a different kind of maturity to
the story and separated from the crowd of romance for romance sake plagued fiction.
The trouble with this story is it moves at such a pace that
apart from Kyla I struggled to get to know many of the other characters and the
language and writing style where slightly more juvenile and I think that meant
some of the grittier aspects of the story were not as dark as they could have
been. However, having said that I really felt the idea of Slating and the
effect this had on Kyla was brilliant. The suspicious Dr Lysander was flawlessly
written and her enigmatic personality meant I was constantly guessing about the
motives of this character, even better these guessing where wrong. This book is obviously an opener to a series
and therefore the story ends on a very gripping cliff-hanger and I had to read
the follow up as fast as I could.
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