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Rating: 4/5 Stars
Series: The Blackcoat Rebellion, #1
Length: 270 Pages
Purchase: [Amazon] | [Barnes & Noble]
Synopsis:
A single test determined her entire future…until she was given a way out
Kitty Doe had one chance to prove she could be worthwhile to society. Instead, she walked out of her ranking test as a complete failure, with a permanent “III” tattooed on the back of her neck. At seventeen, she’s facing a lifetime of cleaning sewers…and being separated from Benjy, the boy she’s loved for as long as she can remember.
So when Kitty is offered a chance to escape her fate, it seems like an easy choice. If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked—surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister’s niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family—a VII—she will be famous. And for the first time, she will matter.
There’s only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered, the same one that got her killed…and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that’s not her own, she must learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she’s only just beginning to understand.
_____________________________“Have you ever played chess, Kitty?”
O.M.G.
I cannot describe how amazing this book turned out to be. I can’t even believe that I almost DNF this book at some point near the beginning.
In the book’s world, our current government and economy was so messed up that someone had to get up and fix it. The solution: An even more messed up government and economy! This world is CRUEL. There’s no longer a President, but a Prime Minister, and this goes for mostly the entire world.
This takes place about 70 years after the dramatic change in an attempt to make lives matter. The solution was to hand out tests to determine where they placed in life, as everyone had some form of purpose. There was only seven levels, VII being the highest, and only exclusive to the Harts family, the family of the Prime Minister. If you want to at least have some form of a normal life, you have to do well enough on the test to get at least a IV. III and below are like sewer work and cleaners. It means that they’re pretty much not important to the world. (Again, cruel.)
The main character, Kitty Doe, (props for a unique first name) takes the test and earns a III due to a specific reason. Once you’ll learn this reason, you’ll understand why that the tests are not the best solution for this new world. She sees a future in the sewers and cleaning, a life she doesn’t want. She decided to take her best chance and escape her fate and go on the run. She gets caught up by the Prime Minister and gets offered to become VII, a member of the Hart family, or she’ll be sent Elsewhere (you do not want to be sent there). She reluctantly agrees and becomes a Masked. Her identity is now Lila, the Prime Minister’s daughter who apparently died in strange circumstances.
When she starts the life of Lila, she learns that she has to follow every order or things or everything is threatened. She has no choice but to follow these orders, but when people come forward telling her that Lila also lead a rebellion, she also reluctantly agrees, even though everything is on the line.
This is where I almost just dropped the book and DNF it. At the very beginning, it almost felt that relationships went way to quick. Only in a couple of pages, it went from staying together forever, deciding if they should “do it,” and throwing in the idea of marriage before Kitty had to leave. Under the circumstances, I now understand why these ideas were thought of, but I almost thought this stuff was actually going to happen. I just thought it was just to quick to happen at the very beginning.
In the beginning, towards when Kitty ran into the Prime Minister, I could not handle it. Everything she was thinking and saying gave me the conclusion that this girl is stupid. I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I had to keep thinking this. I almost thought that if she was going to be like this the entire time, I was gonna DNF it again. Once she arrived at the Hart residence, clearly there were some people against her, giving her the threats if she did not cooperate. However, there were people that were genuinely trying to help her fit in and go around. She kept saying things like “They’re trying to help me, it must be a test to see if I cooperate or not. If I listen to them, I’ll probably just go to Elsewhere or whatever” (not an actual quote, but pretty sums it up). I just sat there like wondering how this girl couldn’t even come around to understand the differences between these people. Luckily for me, this only happened around the first half the book. The second half of the book is what got me tuned in.
All I’m going to say is that you are going to need to buckle in, because it is going to be a ride! I almost thought I was in a tornado because it was shock and shock, and the twists just kept around and around never stopping. When will it end? Never? Ok, that’s fine! People may think that a lot of twists may be to much, and that it will be hard to understand. I’ll tell you right here, right now, that these twists appear only minor, but that have big impacts. They flowed smoothly with the story and didn’t even cause it to go off course.
Also, the ending was very pleasing. It was unexpected, but very pleasing.
You may think that I’m cruel for saying that, but you’ll understand. Won’t you?
Remember, it’s a cruel, cruel world out there.
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