Hope's Daughter – Melanie Cusick-Jones

Description

Life should be simple for Cassie.
For the small population of Earth survivors who live on the Space Station Hope everything they do is planned and scheduled, down to the cyclical food menus, their roles in the station, even how many children they have.
Despite rigid controls directing her life, Cassie feels more out of synch than ever and worries she won’t find a place for herself within the station community. Perhaps that’s because she’s hearing things inside her head that can’t possibly be real. Or maybe it’s the regular elopements of her peers, heading off to a romantic future in the Married Quarter of the space station, whilst she’s never even been attracted to a boy – no matter how hard her best friend Ami pushes them at her. Then there are the odd questions her work placement partner Balik keeps raising. His questions are just as troubling for her as his distracting smiles and eyes that seem to see inside her.
As Cassie draws closer to Balik she finds that everything else in her life begins to shift. He tells her things that call into question the system they live within. She can't believe he is right, but at the same time she finds it hard to deny the sincerity of his ideas. Could there be a connection between Cassie’s problems and Balik’s questions? The truth will drag them both to a terrifying and deadly conclusion beyond anything they could have imagined.

My Opinion

Not usually being a person interested by the Sci-fi/dystopia genres I was unsure as to what I was getting myself into when I agreed to read and review this book. However I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

For me the book started off a bit slow and I was a bit apprehensive, due to the sci-fi nature of it being set of the space ship Hope, as I assumed it was going to be filled with technical and complex wording that would confuse me. This was not the case though, even though the start didn't really engage me much, I continued reading and the story slowly developed into something I couldn't put down. Cassie is a strong heroine lead and Balik is as equally strong but you can sympathise and relate to them easily, which helps to lose you in the novel. I loved the romance in the story and I could feel myself smiling at points in the book as the images felt so real.

Once the main body of the story got going, Hope's Daughter was hard to put down and I found the plot totally unpredictable, which I love in a book, and I really didn't see the ending coming. The only slightly negative thing I have to say about this book was the chapter length, though that is probably personal as I hate stopping in the middle of a chapter and sometimes they just seemed to go on forever. That however is a minor issue that is made up with how engrossing the storyline is.

Over all I would recommend this book to everyone, even if this book usually isn't their genre as it is a great read and I can't wait to read the next instalment in Outlanders.

Genre: YA, Sci-fi, Dystopia, Romance