Adventurous and deeply captivating.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy.

This is a gripping story that definitely deserves more hype! Really liked the plot and characters in this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and sourcebooks for this arc in exchange for a honest review.
I was drawn to this book by the concept of having to avoid certain words which is very unique and interesting. However the author added in some other topics and it soon became diluted. I didn’t feel much for the characters and the other plot lines were predictable. This could be because it was for middle graders and I’m older than that. The writing is good and the past is pretty quick, it is just average fir me.

Delightful middle grade novel about the power of words.
Set in a post climate disaster world, Letta is the apprentice to the wordsmith. When her master goes missing, she is thrown into a discovery of what is really happening in Ark and has to decide how she thinks the world should be moving forward and who will be her allies.

Though I adored the writing and structure of the world, the plot and characters ended up being a letdown. I wish the story had more development in almost all aspects (characterization, environmentalist themes, plot) and the ending felt rushed and unfinished. I really thought I had the potential to LOVE this book, but it was just okay!

This sounded intriguing, but it will not be a good fit for my elementary library. I wasn't able to finish it, so won't be adding a review to Goodreads.

This book is compelling and unique. The world building is incredible. Readers will be sucked in and kept on edge. It also works as a read aloud for middle grade and young adult readers.

Great writing and world building but I wish the theme of environmentalism had been explored more. Nothing really stuck out about the characters.

Lovely premise that was not articulated in a way that I would have enjoyed. I am happy with the idea that I may not have been the intended audience for the book, therefore, other readers may enjoy it more.

This story follows Leta who is the apprentice to the wordsmith. In Ark there is a list of only 500 words that everyone can speak and they are not allowed to speak outside of those words. Once the wordsmith passes away, Leta is now promoted to wordsmith.

Leta slowly starts to figure out that there is something else going on and that there is a plan to take away speech even more. She also soon realizes that she may be the only one that can help.

She then starts on an adventure to help the citizens of Ark and bring back speech.

I did enjoy this book, it had a good pace and was intriguing. I enjoyed the characters for the most part and liked getting to know the world.

However, there did seem to be a lot of info dumps and there was not anything about the story that just blew me away.

Overall a pretty nice read!

The List is a middle grade (young adult?) dystopian novel in which the human population is being controlled through the limiting of their language. While I enjoyed the characters, I didn’t feel like I learned much about them. I never fully understood the bad guy’s motivations. His reasonings behind The List were weak at best.
The writing was definitely the best part of the book. The author is clearly a skilled writer, but the overall plot, world building, and character development were mediocre.

Letta lives in a dystopian future where language has been all but eliminated in an effort to control human influence on the earth. Founder John Noa allows people to live in Ark as long as they promise to speak List, a prescribed list of 500 words that make for stilted conversation. Letta serves as apprentice to the revered Wordsmith, but when he goes missing on an expedition she must take his place. Meanwhile, after harboring an injured young boy, Marlo, who is wanted by the gavvers (police force) and seeing a neighbor's child punished severely for using words not on List, Letta begins to realize that Noa and the gavvers do not have the best intentions when it comes to the people of Ark. Letta must work with Marlo and others to stop John Noa from taking a drastic step to limit speech even further.
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First of all, what a GORGEOUS cover! 😍 I think it is my favorite of the year. It looks absolutely magical and is a perfect representation of the power of words, which is what this book is all about. I couldn't put this one down. The action was pretty non-stop and the pacing and tension kept me turning the pages well past my bedtime. Readers will be completely captivated by the world Forde has created; I want to know more about the climate catastrophe that got the people of Ark to this place. There are hints, but I hope more will be revealed in a future book. There are other unresolved mysteries in this book, as well, which is sure to be part of a trilogy or series. I can't wait to find out what happens next to Letta and Marlo!

The List introduces a dystopian world where vocabulary is being restricted and words are being systematically destroyed. The story follows Letta, the Wordsmith’s apprentice, as she begins to question why the leader of the Ark is limiting people to using the words on the List, and whether his decision is as wise as it seems.

My main problem with The List is that I was expecting it to be more unique. The concept is brilliant. I’ve never read a dystopian novel about a society which is restricting words, and I was expecting a nuanced discussion about how constricting people’s vocabulary also limits their ability to express themselves and their thoughts. Unfortunately, as a Wordsmith’s apprentice, Letta is allowed to use words that aren’t on the List when she is in private. This means that the narrative is normal prose, where I’d been expecting – and hoping – that the story would also be told in List, demonstrating effectively to the reader exactly how few words you’re left with if you’re only allowed to use 500 words in total.

In fact, the List isn’t even strictly limited to 500 words. People come to Letta throughout the novel requesting extra selections of words that they’re allowed access to based off of the requirements of their work. If you’re a builder, you’re allowed to have words about construction and materials, while healers are allowed to have words relating to symptoms and treatments. This cements the fact that this concept is great in theory, but is too difficult to produce in an impactful way.

However, other than my issues with the way that the List works in general, I also found this book incredibly boring. Nothing really happens! There’s a fake out death – a trope which is rocketing to the top of my most hated list – and the majority of the book revolves around the fact that a character might have died… Only for that character to come back into the story so that they can die on the page a chapter or so later. A bit of an uninspired choice.

I didn’t realise that The List was the first book in a series until I’d nearly finished reading it. I have no interest in picking up the sequel (if you have, and you would recommend it, please let me know down in the comments), but I don’t think this needed to be a duology. If you cut out all of the scenes where nothing is really going on and combined it with whatever happens in the sequel this could have made a very well-structured and gripping novel, as the world that Patricia Forde has crafted is very interesting (even if the characters populating it aren’t).

There are two reasons that I decided to give this book two stars instead of one. The first is the fact that there isn’t a romance in this novel! That’s refreshing in a YA dystopian, particularly for a series starter. I’m expecting that this will change in the sequel – another reason that I’m not overly interested in carrying on with the series – but it was nice that Letta was focusing all of her attention on the events going on around her, rather than fixating on her (potential) feelings towards Marlo. The other reason is that the world is very well-crafted. It might have bored me, but it was a brilliant setting and it could have been a very successful novel if it hadn’t been stretched into a duology.

One last point before I go: I’ve just been looking at the Goodreads page for this novel, and I’ve discovered that it was marketed as a middle grade. This is NOT middle grade! There are some pretty harrowing descriptions of torture, and I would not recommend this book for a younger than teenage audience. Just because a dystopian doesn’t have an obvious romance, it does not mean that the story is middle grade. Jeez.

It took me a while to get to used to it. But when I finally took the time and read it without thinking about it. I truly enjoyed the book. The list is the type of book that you shouldn’t judge it by it’s cover.

A fascinating, original page-turner about our language and the words we speak. What an intriguing premise!

Lovely premise that was not articulated in a way that I would have enjoyed. I am happy with the idea that I may not have been the intended audience for the book, therefore, other readers may enjoy it more.

I loved the idea of this book but unfortunately it just did not gel for me. It may be one for other readers.

The world in this novel was great. There was a lot of potential here for more, character and plot wise. The concept was so amazing but the ending fell flat for me and the plot did tend to be predictable. I did enjoy the more serious themes touched upon and I liked the writing style.

A fascinating take on a dystopian world where the remaining people are forced to use only 500 words called The List.

I found the premise for the book very interesting and kept reading because I wanted to know more — about how things in this community worked, who was behind the List, why it was being so fiercely enforced, and what was going to be done to change it. It definitely has similarities to The Giver in that there’s one teen who knows more than the other people in the community and the teen starts to question the way society is.

I like Letta because she’s inquisitive, smart, kind, and has a strong moral compass. The only thing was that sometimes she seems like a 12-year-old and sometimes like a 16-year-old, so it felt difficult to “see” her in my mind’s eye. She felt very young at times while at other points she felt too knowledgeable for a kid.

I wanted to like this book more. The writing is very pretty at times, but overall it felt very simplistic and the bad guy a little too one dimensional.

It’s a middle grade book, but some of the themes were very dark (like trauma, violence, and suicide), so it felt more mature. It just felt like a strange balance.

*Review copy courtesy of NetGalley.

This was an enjoyable book that speaks volumes with respect to free speech and climate change. Both are so incredibly relevant right now. Though it is YA, I think this book can enjoyed by people of all ages.