I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. (via Netgalley)

It took me a bit to get to get into this because the pacing was weird, almost like I was starting in the middle of something ongoing? But it also felt slow. As a result of the slow start and being a shorter book the ending felt kind of rushed. I also don't really think the characters had much development. There were some things that were kind of dropped without follow up but I assume that's to set up for another book in the series.

The Killing Plot starts off with the first page taking hold of you to the very last one. There’s nonstop action. Reminds me of a dystopian little orphan Annie mixed with the maze runner and handmaids tale. Arela is a strong willed girl looking for her parents. I cannot wait for the next two novels

I went in this book knowing absolutely nothing about it. And the beginning was so interesting and fun to read about! Its set in a futuristic society where this society is closed off from the rest of the world because they cannot survive in the outside. Its ruled by one family and so a lot of brainwashing is involved. We follow our main character Arela, an orphan who does not know why her parents left her. We see her struggle with accepting who her parents were and struggle her way through in such a society.

First off with the things i liked, i think the beginning was done really well, knowing about the world was a really pleasant experience. Its a world where people have forgotten what phones or well most advancements from the past, yes they do have their own technology but its not of what we(in the real world) know. So it was fun when she discovered what a mobile phone was and its functions. 

Now with the plot itself. Things felt too convenient at points and the plot started around the last 30%. Sitting through 70% with JUST character work( which too wasn’t done that well) was simply boring. Again the plot, like many dystopians followed a very similar format, the little difference was with the character work. The characters in my opinion, while having a unique story, had a flat growth arc and i did not connect or get invested in any of the characters. And the romance, that was what completely ruined this book for me. It felt cringey, and forced and just over all unenjoyable and that took so much page time. The pacing again was really slow in the beginning and too fast near the end which did not work for me at all. The writing style, while accessible, was not able to lure me by itself, so the world building was the only thing that had me reading this book. wHICH TOO by the end hadn’t expanded as much as i had hoped to.


I think its also important to note that I don’t enjoy dystopians and this is the first ive read in a very long time, so readers who enjoy dystopian may like this, so definitely try this out if you do!!!

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley

I actually ended up liking this more than I thought I would. Going in I had absolutely no expectations and didn't really know much about what the plot of the book. The beginning was sort of slow for me, there were a lot of chapters where nothing really happened, there was just a lot of Arela going places and doing the same things over and over. Towards the end (around 70%) the pace started picking up more and this is when I couldn't stop reading. However, the ending did feel very rushed and it seems the author has a hard time with finding that sweet spot between slow pacing where not much happens and too fast pacing where too much is happening all at once. I got a bit lost at the end and felt like I couldn't keep up with the story.

I liked the overall story and the plot, I just wished the book was longer and had more focus on the bigger events later in the book and spent less time on the (a bit boring) beginning. I would also have loved to see some more world building. I know this is Perry's debut novel, and sadly, it shows. I often found myself a bit annoyed with the (somewhat clumsy) writing and a lot of plot holes and unrealistic happenings/character traits.

With more pages, better pacing, a bit more editing and more world building this could have easily gotten 5 stars from me because of how much I liked the story and was interested in this world and the characters. Will I re-read it? No. Will I pick up the second book? I'll most likely give it a chance, yes.

Overall, the story and idea was there, and they were great. But it just lacked in too many areas for me to give a better rating. The author is definitely on my radar though, and I'm curious to see what will happen in the next book(s).

Thank you to the publisher for providing an eARC of Villainous in exchange for an honest review!
I thought the dystopian element of this story was very interesting and a nice breath of fresh air from traditional dystopian novels in certain aspects. I enjoyed the pacing of the book, however, I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters other than the main character, Arela. The plot was difficult to follow at times, but I overall enjoyed the book.

The Killing Plot is a YA dystopian book about a teenager who is trying to figure out what happened to her parents.  I will start off by saying this is a really fast read, I had it done in two days and was entertained for the most part.  The characters are OK, but I never really connected with them and did not really care what happened to them.  However, the setting was really neat, it takes place in a future of the United States called Osiris.  It is a place that is ruled by one family since they do not think common people could rule themselves properly.  The lead character is an orphan who lives at a government center with her friends.  She meets some people that are part of a revolution of sorts and she also meets the ruler's son.  There were a few different things going on that just did not really flow well for me and the ending was abrupt.  Anyway, I think people into YA dystopian books will enjoy it.

Arela is an orphan living in a dystopian society under a protective dome. I found her story to be compelling and had no trouble seeing it through to the end of the first book. 

At the beginning of the story, all Arela cares about is finding out what happened to her parents, which is natural given the mysterious lack of official records. As she digs into restricted files though, Arela stumbles onto a larger conspiracy. She really doesn’t have enough information to figure out what’s going on in a logical, methodical manner. Instead, she charges into things she doesn’t fully understand, relying on her sheer tenacity.

Arela is very intelligent, but also consistently reckless. This made me nervous as she ran around the city breaking all sorts of rules, but I had to admire her unrelenting pursuit of the truth. I enjoyed the romance in this book because it added to the plot, rather than distracting from it. I also liked reading about Arela’s friends, the people she grew up with and loves like family. I’m glad this book did not fall into the “friendless orphan” trope.

The world building in this book was good. I find “bubble” societies very interesting to read about. The author did a nice job of establishing Osiris, but also leaving room for further development in the sequel. I’m looking forward to learning more about the world right along with Arela. And as with many dystopian books, it is interesting to see how governments evolve to ensure human survival—and at what cost.

Set in a totalitarian regime in the city of Osiris, and against the backdrop of a budding revolution, The Killing Plot is a light read made up of common YA fare. Reminiscent of The Blackcoat Rebellion series in its premise and narration, the book manages to avoid many of the pitfalls of the former series. Unfortunately, just as with Kitty Doe, Arela Harkess too is prone to random outbursts at inopportune moments that distract from the plot.

Arela’s friends seem to exist for the most part as plot filler, as we hear from her perspective what they’re like but aren’t shown much about them . Cenric functions as a useful plot device, and doesn’t have much of a life outside of his passion – painting – and Arela.

The romance between Arela and Cenric is well developed and cute, but unfortunately, the action (while fast paced and moving forward constantly,) ultimately leads nowhere. The book ends on a rather anti climactic note with multiple cliffhangers to be resolved.

Overall, The Killing Plot sets up for an interesting universe, but isn’t very strong as a standalone novel. Hopefully the sequel will build on this book to deliver a more interesting plot.

First, I found Arela to be a compelling character with clear goals. I thought the world was well set up. I was definitely intrigued to see where the plot would go. 
However, as the novel went on I felt that the totalitarian government was not as frightening as it could have been. 
Some of the characters Arela meets fell flat for me. 
And the story did not end up going where I thought it was going, in a way I was ambivalent about. 
For me, personally, this was just average. 
All this being said, I think people who like Divergent and The Hunger Games might very well be into this. I hope this book finds those people.

I received a copy of this book on netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 
This YA dystopian follows Arela Harkess, an orphan searching for answers about her parents, but develops into a much larger and more sinister story. 
I didn't love this book, it left me feeling very meh, despite the cliffhanger at the end, however I'm going to start this review talking about what I did enjoy. I really like dystopian tales as each has a new and unique interpretation of the world many years in the future, and this book provided a perspective that, while this doesn't mean it hasn't been done before, I haven't read about before. I also loved Arela's fascination with our world - the 'old world' - as I share this love of history and I always enjoy it when someone has a strong passion. 
However, this book was too short, and I say this for many reasons, including the pacing. For the majority of this book, it felt like nothing was happening other than Arela sneaking out and arguing with Cenric, then sneaking out and making up with Cenric and this cycle repeated too many times for my liking. This slow beginning was made even more disappointing as the end of this book, when things actually started happening felt very rushed and the plot points were never fully explored before we jumped into the next one. Another reason I feel like this book should have been longer was the world-building, because, like I mentioned earlier, I think this world is very interesting and definitely could have been explored further, but the majority of the world-building was done through big info-dumps that took me out of the story for no reason other than to explain the way the world works. I do understand that this is a debut and this is likely to be something that the author will get better at, but if the book was longer I feel like there could have been more of a chance for this information to be woven more seamlessly into the story. 
I also found this to be a very predictable book, which did affect my enjoyment, as did my disconnect with the characters. I found myself not caring for many of the characters at all, making certain aspects of this book not have the impact they were designed to. 
This all being said, I did still like this book and wanted to keep reading, which is why it got 3 stars and not any less. I would recommend this book to someone who is new to dystopian and fantasy, as I think that my experience reading books in these genres that were better written and so I've gotten used to a higher standard of writing, but I think that it could be enjoyed more by a less experienced reader. The short length would also make it less intimidating for someone newer to the genre.

3.5 stars

This may be the darkest YA dystopian book I have read so far.  

Arela is orphaned due to her parents' disappearance and she has spent her entire teenage years trying to figure out what has happened to them. While she is looking through the hidden archives, her friends are disappearing as well. Now she has to figure out what is happening with them. 

I kind of struggled with Arela's character. I understand she is an orphan, but dang she is angry. She makes enemies with everyone. It felt like a lot of the book was overshadowed by her anger and fighting with people. For a while I lost what the plot was actually about. 

***Potential Spoiler Alert***

Ummmmm did she unearth a pedophilia ring in a YA book? Maybe not, but it kind of sounded like it when a teenage boy was in a costume sitting on a guy's lap. Kind of awkward. 

With the cliffhanger at the end of the book, I can't wait to read the next one to see what happens. 

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

This was a pretty good book! Not my favorite, as I’m not the biggest fan of dystopian novels, but this was entertaining enough to keep me reading all the way through. I would probably read the next book in the series when it’s released!

The Killing Plot is set in a post-apocalyptic world, a dystopia that (apparently) used to be the city of New York, now enclosed in a dome to keep out a virus that kills, slowly and painfully, over the course of days.  Arela is an orphan, being raised by Temporary Welfare Cooperative (TemWel) in Osiris, the monarchy in which she lives.  Arela, now 17, was abandoned by her parents when she was 4, and has spent most of her trying to find out if her parents are still alive, and why they abandoned her to be raised as an orphan.  Arela lives in a technological society, and she is a talented user of that technology - far beyond the skills of her peers.  Arela and her friends, Rosalin (her roommate), and the twins Jaela and Jacobo, are all rapidly approaching graduation and entrance to either Higher Ed or Polytechnica for further education; like many their age, they are worried about what is coming and if they will be separated.  In her attempts to find her parents and discover her past, Arela finds a device described as old technology; based on various descriptions of size and appearance, it may be an old cell phone.  She plans to use it to access her world's variation of the internet, without the risks associated with accepted - and government-monitored - devices.  Trying to find a usable power cable, and to properly reprogram the device, leads Arela to meet a variety of people she would otherwise never meet, and they influence her actions throughout the book, for both good and bad.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but the ending seemed rushed, as if the author could not decide quite how to end it, and there are far too many loose ends for a debut novel.  It has become the fashion recently to write books with the intention of creating a series, and to end novels in this cliffhanger fashion; I find it to be presumptuous of new authors to assume that their work is good enough that there will automatically be a sequel, and as a reader, I don't enjoy being left to wonder which of the half-dozen threads left hanging (some addressed only early in the novel - plus the totally new one introduced in the last several pages - will be addressed in the next volume, assuming there *is* a next volume.  Leaving a single thread to lead into a possible sequel is one thing; there are so many threads left unaddressed that this book seems unfinished.  It reduced my enjoyment of the novel as a whole, and therefore my overall rating.

The Killing Plot was Hunger Games meets Divergent meets From Blood and Ash, with interesting plot twists and elements that made it stand on it's own. 

I adore the dystopian subgenre and I've read the same tropes and plot devices over and over, and I'm happy to continue doing that, but I also really enjoy when I find a book that does something different. TKP is about a girl named Arela who lives in an orphanage. Arela is on a mission to figure out why other children in the orphanage are disappearing, but the more she learns the more danger she puts herself in and the closer she comes to everything falling apart beneath her feet. 

The plot in this book is really quite good. I enjoyed the world building, the explanation about civilization, how Osiris ran, etc. 

Arela herself was a bit difficult for me to connect to personally. She was easy to anger and often completely misread situations, leading to even more anger, and it was difficult to understand where she was coming from and where all of the anger was coming from. Because a lot of this internal turmoil didn't feel resolved or connected to anything it just made her connections with other characters feel somewhat shallow and lacking in emotion. 

I am interested to see how she develops as a character moving forward, but I hope that Book 2 will address some of Arela's anger issues.

This book was a great read! The author had an intriguing writing style. The characters were like able and the dystopian world was just far fetched enough to believe. I enjoyed following the main characters story and would recommend this book to anyone in high school

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for kindly providing this arc in exchange for an honest review!

TW/CW: Death, violence, etc

3 stars!

A promising dystopian mystery novel surrounding a totalitarian government and the disappearance of local children. 

A solid start, and I look forward to seeing where this goes!

I felt some parts fell flat but i still enjoyed it overall!

I will be counting the days until the next book in the series is released. That is how much I loved this book.

Diversity? Yep. A strong female lead? Yep. Beautiful world-building and extremely interesting political scheme? Yep!

This series is going to be a bombshell. It's a great YA dystopian novel for readers who want something light but extremely enthralling to pick up. A great found-family dynamic going on, and the romance potential is through the roof!! Add this to your TBR immediately!

(I received an ARC on NetGalley)

Love a good dystopian novel. Fans of Fallout, the video game series, will enjoy this book. It has very end of the world vibes with a great mystery. I definitely recommend!

As a big fan of YA fantasy and dystopian book, I was intrigued with the description. Especially since The Killing Plot has been compared to The Hunger Games and Divergent more than once.  However, I’m sad to say that this book didn’t quite meet my expectations. The book is rather well written, although I felt like there was a lot of telling instead of showing which is quite a deal breaker for me and the story  felt a bit flat because of it, in my opinion.

I liked the plot itself and the world building was thoroughly done, I just couldn’t get into the story. I don’t think The Killing Plot is a poorly written book, quite the opposite, but I just didn’t “click” with the book. That happens sometimes and unfortunate as it is, everyone cannot love every books they read. So, despite my review, I definitely think this book is worth checking out if you’re a fan of dystopian YA books.

The Killing Plot is about the last known human civilization, Osiris, in the world. In order to survive, the political system has set down very restrictive and strict rules. Everything is high regulated, from what they eat, to how and where they die. Safe to say, Osiris is a very predictable place to live in. With all of that restriction, a rebel group rose to demand freedom, and though things are usually peaceful, the violence has ramped up and Arela gets caught up in the middle. 

It’s good story, and it has good relationships. I found that there were a lot of vague moments that disrupted the flow of the story for me but that could be to build up the rest of the books in the series. 

Alera is a good character. Cenric’s privileged but isn’t stuck up, he’s actually really insecure about the people around him and their intentions. But is down enough to befriend an orphan. 

Some moments when the characters talk about the rebel group, they seem to know a lot about them to be so removed from them, which I found very random. I also felt like things escalated pretty quick and it felt like Arela fell into viper’s nest very easily. 

Towards the end of the book, Arela actually gets on my nerves. She’s irrational and impulsive. Her decisions have terrible consequences, which sets things up for book 2. 

That ending was so hectic and unexpected. Hate the cliffhanger, but it IS a series, so I have to wait for book 2 to know where things are headed.