Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by Raven PA for an honest review.

Genre: Young Adult/Fiction/Utopian

Similar Writings: The Giver by Lois Lowry, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Plot:

What if, the world never ended? What if, the great war of 2022 was all a lie? What if, there’s a world out there hiding a much darker secret? When Evelyn Pierce the last remaining royal in the world, is confronted with the truth about Haven, the small cluster of islands that she calls home is in fact a smoke screen for something much darker. Evelyn will find that the truth is much more sinister than the lies she has been told. Aiden has spent his whole life watching and observing Evelyn, and now the day has come for him to leave his home and travel to the secluded islands of Haven, but Aiden only has one mission and that’s to get Evelyn Pierce away from Haven, but how do you rescue someone that doesn’t even know they need rescuing?

Opinion: This is definitely a book that I can see turning into a big time movie. I am a big fan of the Utopian and Dystopian genre of books, so this read was really perfect for me. It had everything that was necessary to make an enjoyable Utopian book: a seemingly perfect society created after a brutal war, a female protagonist of royal blood with no knowledge of the corruption that her world is ruled by, and a hero who fights to leave and destroy the illusion that is called Haven.

Evelyn Pierce is the last remaining royal in the world, and lives on a set of islands called Haven in the year 2074. Evelyn has been lead to believe that the great war of 2022 killed off most of the human race and that out of the wreckage, Haven was built by a new government (The Fellowship) that promised to keep everyone safe. On Haven there is no crime or treachery, and all of its citizens are equal and well taken care of, or so Evelyn thinks. In reality, there is a world outside of Haven that Evelyn has been told doesn’t exist. After being kidnapped from a young man named Aiden, Evelyn starts to find out the truth about Haven and about her life.

Like I said above, I can really see this turning into a great film series. The storyline kept surprising me throughout this read, in the sense that it kept turning out to be something different then what I was initially expecting. I went into this read expecting a Utopian story that was similar to The Giver or The Hunger Games, in a way that the main characters have been lied to and that there is much more going on then what has been put before them. This book has LAYERS though. At first the reader experiences a sheltered protagonist living in a Utopian society, but then we find that it is all just one big social experiment to see how social classes live separately, but THEN you find out that the entire world is not only still existing…but that Evelyn’s life has been closely documented by the government her entire life (I won’t give away why, no spoilers!). The story is great, apart from grammatical errors and misspellings throughout the book. I will admit that it gets VERY hard to read at times when there is no “s” at the end of a word that should be plural, or when ending quotations are not inserted at the end of dialogue. But it becomes less noticeable as you read on, so do not fret.

Another small issue I had was how all of these characters were so gullible! Over and over I saw all of the main characters somehow “knowing” that another character was telling the truth. The same line of “knew she was speaking the truth” or “knew what he was saying was the truth” was repeated by Aiden, Evelyn, and even Harrison. How, may I ask, do these characters just KNOW? Haven must have installed lie detectors in everyone’s brains huh? .Sarcasm.

Harrison Dickson, the unruly antagonist. Harrison is arrogant, charming, gorgeous, ruthless, and power driven (you know the type), and wants to marry Evelyn so that he can rule over Haven. I personally found Harrison to be very wishy-washy throughout this story. The basis of his character is to be greedy, heartless and dangerous, but I kept seeing him start to care for things that I could not see him caring for. I mean let’s be honest here, a man that murders his girlfriend’s when they become “a problem” and expressing his lack of emotions should NOT be JEALOUS if Evelyn has another love interest. If anything he should be worried that he will not be in power. I think this character could have been made to be much more sinister and dark, which I think would have brought on much more issues for Evelyn. Seeing as how there is a bit of romance brewing between our heroes Evelyn and Aiden, I found it REFRESHING that the author did not base this story around their relationship. There are WAY too many books that have a plot and story-line that are amazing, but have then been ruined by a dramatic romance…Yes, again, I am looking at you Twilight. So THANK YOU KM Hager, for not ruining this amazing book with that nonsense 😉

Overall, I really enjoyed this read and if you like Utopian/Dystopian books then you should definitely give this a try.