Unblinking by Kira Carter.
Everyone is watching.
Minka Stanis just wants to be left alone—impossible since the Eyes record and broadcast every moment of her day. Then a humiliating incident in the high school cafeteria makes her the laughingstock of her tower city, and life behind the glass walls becomes unbearable. When the intriguing new boy at school tells her about a place away from the gaze of the cameras, Minka plots her escape from the towers. But the Shuttered Lands are across the desert, and going there will mean leaving everything she’s ever known behind.
Fresh out of tower training, Zedd Fincher is settling into his dream job. When he gets assigned to edit Minka Stanis’s Stream footage, he spins her every misstep into a string of hit clips. As Minka’s fame grows, so do Zedd’s feelings for her. But a crisis at home brings the darker side of his work into focus. And Zedd soon learns editing other people’s lives has consequences.
As Minka is thrust unwillingly into the spotlight and Zedd’s life begins to unravel, only one thing is certain:
The Eyes are always watching.
A good read. Likeable story. 3*.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately it’s not the book for me. DNF @ 21%.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

So I was off to a rough start with this one. I’m not sure why, at the start it was coming off a little cheesy and childish (ex: the names, they still kind of bother me. Like some are just normal names with a letter changed or missing, like “Lortni” or “Teve”). Anyway, stick with it! A few of the details are a little cheesy, but the overall premise and the story are great.

It’s a rather unique dystopian setting, there’s “big brother” (the eyes) watching your every move, the trustees are monitoring everything you say to keep you in line, and there’s no escaping it. There’s no privacy and anyone can watch your any move. The main character, Minka, decides she can’t live like this and needs to escape. Our other main character, Zedd, is going to help her.

It really was a great read, hopefully I don’t have to wait too long for the next one!

Seriously, the world and the Dystopian premise of this story is very promising and I liked it so much. The mysterious Trusties. The Eyes. The Shuttered Land. It's grandiose. If you're gonna ask me, this premise is amazing. VEry Believable because this can really happen in the future, right? I even want to see this in a movie. Yep, I seldom want a book turn into a movie. But this fictional, futuristic world with it's own rules and plenty of limitations. I was blown.

If Only....

My main problem is the CHARACTERS!!!

Maybe I was just expecting too much and that was my mistake. I expected there would be a badass heroine who would start a rebellion, not that I want her to be like Katniss, really, but the Dystopian world the author created is in need of a great rebellion.

No. PRIVACY. AT. ALL.

Anyway, there was no badass heroine, nor is there a hero. What I got was bunch of nasty, st*pid, childish, immature teenagers including our heroine Minka, who is by the way almost turning eighteen. They all act immature, reacts immaturely. Students talking too much while there's a teacher in the classroom, which is maybe normal since high schoolers these days. But it was just too much. And let's not forget there's the EYES always watching so we shoudl expect that everyone is somehow acting as if they should be careful because someone is watching.

Maybe this is a novel about bullying and how to stand against it.

But I also found inappropriate lines and actions even from adults. Say our hero, Zedd. He loves her. Okay. BUT, just the second day, ever since he saw her face on the STream, he already felt jealousy because seems like the new guy in school (who is by the way the best character in the book). Too fAst, I think. HE loves her, yet, he edits her video clips making her more of a laughingstock than she already is. Making her life even more miserable.

He like her and he'll do anything to make up for everything he did to her. But he keeps editing these videos that ruin her. its his job? He did quit at the end so he CAN quit. So why not fight a little earlier?

Zedd is hypocrite who SEEMS care more for his job than to his father and even Minka. Let me add, he was ready to run away with Minka even though his father has just gotten by the Trustees, meaning his mother would be left alone miserable and he knew it but will leave anyway. Because he's going with Minka..

What the????

Other issues of characters were a mother calling her daughter a slut, though she apologize about it the next day. A NOT-YOUNG teacher rolling her eyes towards her student because she wasn't paying attention. An experienced teacher doesn't roll her eyes in that situation.

ANyway, because of how the characters were portrayed, I couldn't even care if everyone is bullying, tormenting Minka. This is fiction soI don't this makes me a bad person, really. She's so not worthy of sympathy because sometimes she acts as if she's asking for humiliation.

And I don't sympathize with Zedd, even if he's stuck with a job he doesn't like and his father has a cancer. My sympathy goes towards his motehr who would soon be left alone grieving.

I really hope that the characters show much maturity in the next book and that no reactions and actions that are really not making sense.

Like I said, this has a very promising and believable fictional world, and dystopian worlds should be like and so I'm still gonna read the next book. :)

I was too honest.

It took me a while to get into this book. That could have something to do with the fact that I was re-reading the Throne of Glass series at the same time. I NEVER read more than one book at a time, but I made an exception this time. I have several books to read and review before the end of the year, but I have been on hold for a copy of Tower of Dawn from the library since it came out a couple of months ago. Since I was starting to get close to the front of the line, I decided to start re-reading the ToG series as a refresher, after I had already started reading this book.

In the end, I didn't really end up reading two books as much as put this book on hold while I read ToG. Once I finished, it was much easier to get into this book, and I really want to see what happens next.

I have mixed feelings about Minka in this book. I hate how gullible she is and how easy it is to convince her to leave everything she has ever known and do something that is unheard of and considered impossible. However, when you consider where she lives and her upbringing, the way she acts is more understandable.

The author did a good job at world-building, and the story's concept was interesting and not much of stretch from what could happen in the near future. Basically, the Eyes are everywhere. Every minute of everyone's day is recorded to their Stream. The only place with no Eyes are in restrooms, and each person has a "Reserved Room." However, spending too much time in your reserved room is suspicious.

Everyone in the Towers has a job. It is the editors' job to sift through everyone's daily streams and edit clips for different channels, which are similar to what we all watch on YouTube today, like "fail" clips, giggling babies, and embarrassing moments caught on camera. And just like today, having clips that get lots of views can make you famous, and lots of people in the Towers want to be Stream Stars. Like I said, not a stretch from what could happen in the near future.

The only difference in the book is everyone lives in a circle of towers, and they never leave. Outside is a sweltering desert with dangerous sandstorms, and they have their food-like cubes brought in from the Fertile Lands.

Although this book took a while to get into, I did get really into it by the end, and I think the author did a great job at setting up for an action-packed sequel. I can't wait to see what happens next!

I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Goodreads Synopsis:
Everyone is watching.

Minka Stanis just wants to be left alone--impossible since the Eyes record and broadcast every moment of her day. Then a humiliating incident in the high school cafeteria makes her the laughingstock of her tower city, and life behind the glass walls becomes unbearable. When the intriguing new boy at school tells her about a place away from the gaze of the cameras, Minka plots her escape from the towers. But the Shuttered Lands are across the desert, and going there will mean leaving everything she's ever known behind.

Fresh out of tower training, Zedd Fincher is settling into his dream job. When he gets assigned to edit Minka Stanis's Stream footage, he spins her every misstep into a string of hit clips. As Minka's fame grows, so do Zedd's feelings for her. But a crisis at home brings the darker side of his work into focus. And Zedd soon learns editing other people's lives has consequences.

As Minka is thrust unwillingly into the spotlight and Zedd's life begins to unravel, only one thing is certain:

The Eyes are always watching.

My Review:
I received a copy of this from Netgalley in exchange for a review.

First of all, I really like the cover. It's the reason I clicked on it, and the description sounded like something I'd like so I requested it. I wasn't sure what I was getting into at first, but I'm glad I read it.

The book begins with seventeen year old Minka agonizing over her latest embarrassing stunt at school, in the tower city she lives in. The "Eye", what they call the security system built into every room captures every moment of ever life inside the walls of the city. It's supposed to be for protection, but most of what is being sent to the editors of the footage is fodder for funny videos. You don't have any privacy, and anything embarrassing you do at any time is filed and uploaded. This particular stunt was her tripping over her new skirt at school during lunch and falling into the lap of a very popular jock while simultaneously pulling her pants down.

Life in the future seems like its too good to be true, if you can put up with the cameras. Food is in cubes, everything you need is in your tower, and you're safe from the dangerous lands beyond the city, which has really dangerous sandstorms. You're most likely to get famous doing something embarrassing than doing something worth while. When you're too sick or old you go to the Sanitarium, and you're not seen again.

The second viewpoint is an eighteen ear old boy named Zedd. A newbie editor of the stream, who's assignment is to watch Minka's live feed for anything worthwhile, after her latest disaster in the cafeteria. He doesn't love his job, but he loves the praise he gets from his workplace when his clips go viral. When a family emergency sends him spiraling, he's not sure who to turn to and begins drinking.

Honestly when I started this book I felt a little too old to be reading it. The way the characters reacted to things seemed childish and I didn’t really relate to it. Everyone in the city was wrapped up in high school drama, even the adults, because of the stream. I didn't really feel like I was going to like it until they start talking about the Shuttered Lands, the lands beyond the city. A new student, Ren, moved from there and has a lot of information about them, and Minka's interested. The shuttered lands have no eyes, no camera's to watch your every move and upload it for all to see. But they also don't have readily available food, water, and shelter like the cities do. She wants out, but does she want out that bad?

Overall this book was good but not my new favourite. I will say that I liked it more as I progressed through it, and the characters developed nicely. Although I feel like this story has been done before, with the camera's and the dystopia and the horribly ravaged planet, along with the scary controlling government, I liked the way this went and I'll check out the next book in the series if given the chance. I don't usually like rotating viewpoints but I liked being able to see two sides of this story. Check it out and see what you think.

Here's a link for the book on amazon!
https://www.amazon.ca/Unblinking-Shuttered-Lands-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B075FGD85L/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509431458&sr=8-1&keywords=Unblinking

Thanks for reading! Check out this review and more at my blog.
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