This book sadly wasn’t for me. I struggled to get into it I’m afraid and couldn’t get half way through it sadly. 

I adore Kristen Cast’s other series - House Of Night and House Of Night Other World but this new series just isn’t to my liking. 

If you do like YA/Dystopia you might want to check this one out.

Before I begin my review for The Key to Fear (The Key book one) by Kristin Cast, I would personally like to thank the author, the publishers and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC and I have reviewed it honestly.
	
	Dystopian tales have never been more possible. 50 years after a global pandemic wipes out a large percentage of human kind, The Key takes hold and governs a stringent society with rigid rules. Rule number one? No touching. Join a contrasting cast of characters as secrets are shared, rules are broken and hearts are destroyed.
	
	The Key to Fear features, but is not limited to, the following themes:
		○ YA fantasy
		○ YA romance 
		○ Dystopian
		○ Strict society
		○ Futuristic technology 
		○ Post pandemic 
		

	My overall rating for The Key to Fear is…
	
			4 Stars!
			
	This book was such a crazy concept of a post pandemic world where people are not allowed to touch each other. I see touching another person as a basic need for human kind and the possibility of having that taken away is unimaginable! Cast creates an eerie world with relatable characters and shocking events that will leave you utterly devastated.

This post-pandemic dystopian was a really enjoyable read even if it did feel somewhat closr to home given the present times, a look into this possible future was at times terrifying, but the no touch laws were diffinitely believeable. The world was very initeresting to read about with the new technology, a very gripping story with a cliff hanger of an ending.

I really wanted to like this book - I really wanted dystopia to be on the rise again, but with a fresh new perspective. However, this mostly felt like a book that would have fit right into the tail end of the earlier dystopia surge with nothing really to distinguish it.

So here's my problem with dystopia - it has a lot of cliches and it's hard to find a way to put a new spin on it, given how many books there were out there. The main one is that the government lies is a big theme and it's supposed to be a shocking twist, but it just can't be anymore because it's expected. It's a genre I want to see resurgent, to get a new, fresh take, but everything just feels a poor copy cat of the originals.

I had to fight my way through the first 100 pages as there was nothing that grabbed me in the story. It was obvious where the story was going, and that the no touching rule meant that the world would be undone by love, which it did. It was not only predictable and so cliché, but also felt like it was missing out on the enormous potential of looking into what a world without touch means psychologically.

Plus the writing fell really flat for me as there was no emotion in it. It just sort of ambled along between events without evoking any chemistry between the characters. Given the whole "no touching will be broken by love" destination of the book, there really needed to be a strong romance, but I didn't find one. Instead, it felt like their "romance" was entirely being set up by the comparison to Elodie's betrothed - but any semi-decent man who bothered to hold a conversation with her would be made to look romantic by that comparison.

It did get easier to read as the story went on, because I'd got into the swing of it and could read quickly thanks to knowing where it was going. Plus it was a short book.

Reading a book about a post pandemic world given *gestures around* was a strange experience. Having the only thing being banned as touch felt rather unrealistic - because it left me with a lot of questions about how it was enforced, how they overcome love, and why they even had to match people to make families if the babies were grown in labs anyway.

Plus there were a few flaws in how the world now deals with avoiding transmission. Sure, people have walking shields that they can pop up around them, but it didn't all follow through. If you're going to say that touch is the main transmission vector, then sharing workspaces is impossible without a thorough sanitisation - and yet that happens. Giving people objects is also out, and yet that happens. Showers are apparently out of fashion as it's perceived unsanitary (so have a UV light bath instead - even though that kills germs it doesn't remove matter from your skin etc).

There are three POVs (plus maybe one or two chapters from someone else? I can't really recall), but the third - Blair - is one I'm still trying to work out why she was in there. She's an ambitious woman high up in the Key's structure, but the plot would be basically the same without her. She seems to be there to make Aiden's identity reveal a "big moment" (which was another cliché tick box moment, and also fell flat as I hadn't cared about Blair, so her information coming into Aiden's story was "eh, so what?" for me.)

Oh my god, this book had me hooked from the very beginning and I had so much trouble putting it down! 

This post-apocalyptic, dystopian world that Cast has created is so believable during the time of Covid-19 where touching is a no-no! This book really makes you consider how things could turn out in the future, with your spouse being chosen for you with no intimacy involved and science being the only way for babies to be conceived. I really enjoyed the world building in this book and the use of technology to show us how much the world has changed 

The Key to Fear is such an interesting and well thought out story with great characters that developed throughout. I liked reading this from different perspectives as it helped build on the plot and the actions taken. I really liked Elodie and Aiden and how the two become linked in this journey. I also liked reading as Elodie started to realise what The Key had become, even if it did happen quite suddenly. 

The Key to Fear is such a brilliant book that shows how dangerous power can be and what people will do to obtain it. I feel like it's been so long since I read a captivating dystopian and this one ticked all the boxes for me! I cannot wait to read the next book in this series and to read more of Cast's work as this was the first book I've read of hers! 

Thank you to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

How far should a government go to 'govern' us? When do we reach totalitarianism? Even using the excuse of our safety, where should the lines be drawn? "No touching today for a healthy tomorrow" The story is so relevant today, it makes it even scarier.

This is a technologically advanced society in the future, that due to a pandemic which wiped out a lot of the planet's population, became totalitarian under the supervision of The Key, a corporation that 'saved' them.

The protagonist Elodie, follows the rules to a T and is a stickler for punctuality, but also loves things of the past like water showers and unsanctioned books of fiction. She believes in the Key's purpose. But now she is discovering that she craves something different, and Aiden seems to fit the bill. Aiden who doesn't seem to fit into the system, or really care to. He doesn't like the 'emptiness' and wants to feel. He hopes to find others like him. I adore Aiden and Elodie's interactions as he keeps her on her toes and makes her think about things like never before.

What happens when you live in a world where touching is illegal and suddenly you want to touch someone? Can you live the life that was predetermined for you?

Captivating from the get go and highly addictive, this tickles my love of conspiracies in fiction. There is a power struggle going on between the powers that be and a shadowy organization that want to 'make things right'. In the midst of all the craziness that ensues and surprising scenes that 'shortcircuit' your breath, the protagonists fight for what they believe in, as they decide what to believe in.

With all encompassing 3rd person POVs that have brutally honest details, the author makes them so invitingly personal and simultaneously cinematic. Including descriptions that are comfortable in their originality. I do think the book needed to concentrate a little more on Eos and what they actually did. It would have given a little more oomph to some crucial scenes.

Humans have the capacity for such great things and the capacity for such terrible things. This book navigates through the consequences of the lust for power, the arrogance of forcing your will on others, plus questions of morality and humanity. Showcasing the undeniable power of love in a beyond shocking finale, this is a worthy beginning to a promising new obsession of a series.

The Key to Fear is a rather frighteningly relevant book that explores what the world (or, in this case, a particular section of the world) could be like in the wake of a global pandemic. One of its most interesting aspects is an almost complete reliance on technology and virtual reality for communication and leisure activities, which could all too easily become our future, pandemic aside. My full review will be available as part of the blog tour in November. Thank you, Head of Zeus, for the ARCs!

Rating: 3.5

Trigger Warnings: sickness, death, fatphobia, emotional abuse, controlling relationship, human experimentation, virus, pandemic, suicide

The Key to Fear is a strong opener to a new series, a dystopian story that’s a little more familiar than anyone could have expected. I found it to be an interesting read, though admittedly I was expecting it to me mostly focused on the dystopian virus element whereas this book has a strong romance focus. Not a bad thing, by any measure, just not quite what I expected. The premise of The Key to Fear is, in 2020, particularly eerie. Fifty years prior to the book a virus struck the world and the resulting pandemic nearly wiped out humanity. Out of the disaster of the Cerberus virus, the Key rose. A conglomerate focused on controlling the spread of the virus and protecting humanity, the Key outlawed dangerous behaviours and took control, with everything from banning books, choosing relationship matches and identifying career paths to outlawing touch itself.

I found the first half of the book and the shady as hell mystery surrounding the Key, the Key’s behaviour and missing victims super super interesting. It’s rare that worldbuilding wins me over that simply but this was a realistic seeming version of a post pandemic world that never adjusted back to closeness and intimacy. The ongoing, intense fear of the virus was powerful and the technological steps that society has taken to avoid touch. There were moments where Elodie explained adaptions the world had made, like spacing out subway seats that a year ago would have seemed strange to me. Now, well. It was very, very eerie. The banned book aspect was a little strange, there wasn’t much in-text to explain why they were banned, other than the Key generally controlling things. I don’t mind that so much though, as this was the start of a series so there could be more information coming in later books, especially after the way this book ended. There’s a lot more to know about this world, particularly outside of the Zones the book starts in, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Despite not expecting it, I did think the romance was good, though not something I generally look for in a book, and I did like the way that Aiden and Elodie’s relationship was tied into the conflict in the story. It tied into several plot points (that I won’t spoil here) and there were several twists that I didn’t guess. One of them, in hindsight, was so obvious that I felt like an idiot, but it did surprise me very well. The end of the book built up into a complex ending that had my heart in my throat and I’m looking forward to finding out what happens in the next book.

"No touching today for a healthy tomorrow."

This is the motto the citizens of Kristen Cast's newest novel, The Key to Fear, live by. In this YA dystopian novel, based 50 years post pandemic the citizens of New America are governed by a corporation called The Key.

The Key controls everything. From selecting your perfect career and your ideal match, to policing human contact and creating babies in a lab. Most people live the majority of their life in VR and doing anything out in the real world is considered out of the ordinary.

Elodie is a stickler for the rules. She takes her job at the Long Term Care Unity seriously and being the sole nurse overseeing a few comatose patients is quite and suites her perfectly. Everything changes when one little girl wakes up, before later dissapearing completely. 

With the help from Aiden, the strange boy working at The End Of Life Unit, Elodie will not stop until she has answers. She soon learns that everything she has always known is not as it seems and her whole world unravels around her.

The character development in this novel was amazing and I loved watching Elodie's character mature in such a short period of time. I also enjoyed the world building though I can't help but to feel like there is so much more for us to explore and I can't wait to see where this series goes in future novels. 

While I did really enjoy the storyline in this book I found it to be quite slow for the first 75% and struggled to get through the pages. This is why I am only giving this book 3.5/5.

If you are looking for a new dystopian to help you get through our current pandemic this is the book for you!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Head of Zeus publishing for giving me an eARC of this novel in return for an honest review.

3.5 ⭐
Well this one hits close to home! This book is set 50 years after a pandemic has wiped out half the population and now people aren't allowed to touch in anyway at all, everything is sanitised regularly by bots and social distancing is a must!

I struggled with this at first, I think if I read this pre real life pandemic then I would of enjoyed it a lot more at the beginning but, as it gives us a view of the future that could actually become reality, it got a bit scary!

That said I really enjoyed the second half of the book as it got more into the action rather than just telling us about the world.

The main character Elodie is one of the believers in The Key, the government type body that runs Westfall. It has laws to keep everyone safe and away from another pandemic. Elodie has never know any different and believes that The Key are there to protect everyone and that they would never lie. Until something happens that changes her mind. I feel she had a good progression in the story, but maybe a bit rushed.

The other characters where also good to bring the story to life as it provided some alternative thinking on The Key and the rebel group Eos. 

Overall a good start to what I'm sure is to be a fantastic series.

I am forever in search of quality dystopian fiction so I was thrilled to discover 'The Key to Fear'. It not only has a highly intriguing central concept but is chillingly relevant to the state of the pandemic stricken world. The character development and world building in this first book in Cast's new series 'The Key' is immersive and satisfying from start to finish.

Elodie lives in a post-pandemic world governed by The Key, a mysterious presence which controls every citizen in the city of Westfall. She is rule-abiding, toeing the line in this technology driven society, experiencing life in VR, accepting a perfectly 'matched' fiancé and diligently assisting bots in caring for patients as a nurse in the Medicenter's long term care unit. This is until she meets mysterious stranger Aiden who has a surprisingly cavalier approach to life in the city, something Elodie is not used and finds intriguing, emotionally and physically (difficult in a society where touching is illegal!). He begins to open her eyes to the reality of life and force her to realise perhaps there is a hidden sinister edge to this apparently perfect city.

I love the character of Elodie (a perfectionist people pleaser who's only slight infraction is reading banned salacious novels - I can relate to that!) and her development across the novel is skilfully plotted. I also enjoyed her chemistry with Aiden - their 'rebellious' actions felt believable and left me rooting for their success (as well as villain Blair's downfall of course). Additionally, Cast has included a couple of twists which made me pause and just gape at my Kindle. 

I already cannot wait to find out what events follow this first outing for Elodie and Aiden. The premise has been well established and the ending leaves the reader desperate for the sequels!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Through no fault of the book, I had to DNF this one. I didn't realise when I started it that it concerns a viral pandemic where touching if forbidden...! I know some people enjoy reading dystopian books about pandemics during pandemics, but it was a little too close to home for me. I'd like to try reading this when we're no longer in a pandemic, as the premise does sound super interesting.

The Key to Fear by Kristin Cast 

I have been in search for a new YA dystopian novel, as it’s a genre I do love reading. I am so glad that I read this amazing novel by Kristin Cast. It’s compared to novels like The Handmaids Tale and Vox, both equally amazing dystopias.

The Key governs the world, they tell their citizens that they must not touch. Intimacy between people is absolutely forbidden. This is due to a pandemic that wiped out Billions of people, and The Key blames humans for this and seek to control all in a bid to stop another deadly pandemic. They don’t stop at making touching illegal, they have banned books and expect people to live their lives through VR, hardly meeting with actual people in real life. 

Elodie the main character takes The Keys rules seriously and trusts their advice. However, in walks Aiden, a boy that makes Elodie think and ask questions, he makes her wonder if life can be lived another way, and whether the all-knowing The Key are actually the protector, or the captor playing with their lives, playing at being God. 

I would recommend to anyone who loves YA dystopia. Rating it 4.5 stars, rounding it up to 5.

First off, I'm a huge fan of the House of Night series (who isn't, am I right?) so I was thrilled to see a new book in a new world coming from Kristin Cast! 

This book was one that shook me a bit, as with the current pandemic happening around the world, it was very easy to believe that we could one day live in a world where touch is forbidden. That being said, Cast blends clever world-building while exploring themes of resistance and perseverance. I can't wait to find out what happens next... that ending just about killed me, but knowing Cast, the next book won't disappoint!

Fifty years ago, a pandemic swept the world and in order to survive, a ‘no touching today for a safe tomorrow’ motto became law. Living in the advanced technological world that developed to fulfill this need - with VR being the preferred way to meet other people and an algorithm appraising peoples aptitude’s for the correct career path - Elodie works hard at her medical career, while living with her overbearing mother, waiting for her wedding to her ‘matched’ fiancé. When she meets Aiden, a strange boy working in the morgue, she has no idea just how much her life, and everything she’s ever believed, is about to change. 

The Key to Fear took a while to get going, although I appreciated the world building required a fair bit of explanation, but once I got in to the story, it moved along at a nice pace. I’m not sure if the author was trying to make a real life connection between current world events and this story (I’m never sure how long books took to write and whether the idea came before the coincidence of the real life events!), but since the theme here was ‘is the governing body responsible for advising us on the pandemic telling the truth or are we all being duped?’ I’d like to hope not. There’s enough crazies around with those sorts of ideas already 😅

Elodie’s fiancé was a real piece of work, and it felt like he was maybe a bit too stereotypical as the chauvinistic, condescending boyfriend. I found myself hoping for at least some redeeming qualities that would make me feel something for his character, but nope. Elodie herself was a somewhat likeable character, but she seemed to flit between being naive to the point of brainwashed, then make a gigantic leap to ditch her entire world belief, without a whole heap of provocation. Aiden was by far the realest character and the highlight of the book. I can’t wait to see more from him in book two!

Reading this in 2020 feels a little close to home! People aren't allowed to touch one another or be too close to anyone. Sounds familiar...

I have read and loved books by Kristin Cast before and found her writing style as good as ever. The world-building, charactersation, and plot were all well constructed and enjoyable throughout.  It's a great dystopian that makes our current situation feel a little bit better. 

The only thing I didn't like was the multiple points of view that the book switched between. However, this did make sense at the end of the book and allowed us to see character growth from different perspectives so it changed my mind as it went along.

Elodie was definitely my favourite character and I initially disliked her! Her character development was phenomenal and we discover she does have heart and strong will of her own. 

This has definitely been set up for a sequel and there are plenty of unanswered questions. I will definitely be picking up the next in the series if there is a book 2!

If you're looking for a blend of science-fiction, romance and dystopian then this has them all bundled together! A highly enjoyable YA dystopian!

Set in a future ruled by The Key and where human contact is illegal, The Key To Fear is a dystopian sci-fi book that I found fairly okay, but a little underwhelming. 

The characters were well written, although there were a lot of points of view to switch between, and I did like how their stories connected in the end. The world it was set in was also very well created and thought out. 

It seemed a little bit slow in pace at the beginning, and one of the story lines which appeared important (the testing on children in the hospital) was abandoned halfway through- we never found out what happened with that I don’t think?

In contrast the ending came across as very rushed, it seemed to happen all at once and that’s what left me feeling so underwhelmed.

I'm not sure when The Key to Fear was written, but 2020 is definitely the year to read it! Set in a dystopian future where a disease has wiped out most of humanity, those that remain stay safe by never touching or getting too close to one another. 

The world building in this book was really well done, and characters that seemed unconnected to begin with were woven together as the plot went on. There were some parts that lagged, where the plot didn't seem to be moving anywhere, and some parts that felt quite out of place becuase they didn't seem to lead to anything. 

I managed to finish the book, but it was a bit of a struggle, unfortunately! 

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warning: death, diseases, blood.

This book was a well rounded, enjoyable dystopian that was a great beginning to a new series. While I did have some issues with it, such as it being a bit slow at the beginning, the characters were interesting and enjoyable to read about. 

Cast has a lovely writing style, with the description of the dystopian world being believable and interesting. However, I did feel as if the plot was rushed towards the end, making the ending feel rushed and underwhelming. 

Ultimately, this is a fine dystopian novel to read should you be in the mood for one!

This was a decent YA dystopian novel. It was a bit of a slow read but the plot was interesting. I found the pacing a bit off, however it was an entertaining book. 

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this E-book to review via Netgalley