Personal Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.76 Stars Content Rating: R @doctorfusionbebop: Some 17 y. o. chick named Dee Guerrera was just sent to Alcatraz 2.0 for killing her stepsister. So, how long do you think she'll last? @morrisdavis72195: I hope she meets justice! She'll get what's coming to her! BWAHAHA! @EltonJohnForevzz: Me? I think Dee's innocent. And I hope she can survive. Welcome to the new future, where good and honest citizens can enjoy watching the executions of society's most infamous convicted felons, streaming live on The Postman app from the suburbanized prison island Alcatraz 2.0. When seventeen-year-old Dee Guerrera wakes up in a haze, lying on the ground of a dimly lit warehouse, she realizes she's about to be the next victim of the app. Knowing hardened criminals are getting a taste of their own medicine in this place is one thing, but Dee refuses to roll over and die for a heinous crime she didn't commit. Can Dee and her newly formed posse, the Death Row Breakfast Club, prove she's innocent before she ends up wrongfully murdered for the world to see? Or will The Postman's cast of executioners kill them off one by one? (goodreads.com) During a particularly slow day of work (yesterday), I was at the front desk of the library I work at, waiting for patrons to come check out books. There were very few patrons in the library and so I could either stare at the shelves or look at bookish websites online to pass the time. As I was looking at the library’s collection of eBooks and eAudiobooks I happened to see the cover for #Murdertrending in the teen category. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t at least be interested by the premise. I know I was. So I read the first chapter in snatches during my shift and then downloaded the rest of the eBook as soon as I got home. I just finished reading this book and I felt like I needed to collect and summarize my thoughts on it. And lucky you, you get to read them! Unless you leave this review right now. But please don’t, I’ll try to make this worth your while. First, I feel like I should explain the R rating in case my mom ever reads this review. (HI MOM!) I give it that rating for two reasons: the language and the violence. Because oh boy is there a lot of both in this book. The characters are to F-bombs like flower girls are to flowers at a wedding. From reading the synopsis you could probably already guess that this was going to be gory so I don’t really need to explain to you much about that. Except… it was way bloodier than I was expecting so maybe I do need to explain. Do not get attached to the characters in this book because something horrible will befall them. And when I say horrible I mean horrible. Every death is explained in great detail, making sure to note how body parts fall all over the place when explosions happen and what skin looks like when it’s melting off of someone. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you dislike violence then do not read this book because there won’t be much left for you to read if you skip all of the deaths. With that being said, I actually really did enjoy #Murdertrending. It was a bizarre mix of The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Caraval by Stephanie Graber, Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake, and reality TV. These things are all pretty similar to each other (and some of them probably influenced each other) so it’s no surprise that this book reminded me of all of them, but they all have very distinct vibes, if you’ll allow my use of the word “vibes”, and #Murdertrending kind of captured all of those vibes. I’ll stop saying “vibes” now. The characters were pretty one dimensional, sure, and the plot was (hopefully) completely convoluted, but there was something about it that kept me reading, excited to see what happened next. It did a really good job of sucking me in and making me what to know how everything turned out in the end. The writing style wasn’t anything new or elaborate, but it was so easy to get into and understand. Like I said, the characters weren’t great. We didn’t even get to know most of them all that well, even though I did, foolishly, get attached to some of them. Though we got to know some of Dee’s (the MC) backstory, it was mostly only stuff that was relevant to the plot. And the things we learned were vague enough that she could have been anyone. This is something I saw a lot back in ye olden days when I read tons of fanfiction (haha, not like I do that anymore, ha... ha). It’s an interesting “technique” (can I call it that even though it’s probably unintentional?) that makes it hard to see the MC as a whole person, but it makes it very easy to get immersed in the story. To say it simply, you don’t know enough about the character to see them as someone else so you fill in the blanks of the character with your own personality. Generally this is frowned upon (I believe they call it a form of "self insertion"), but in this case I think it actually worked. That’s just my opinion though. Was this story realistic? No. Not in the slightest. I don’t think so many people would be so gleefully watching violent executions in this day and age. Even if it was easily streamed from a smartphone. Someone would have put a stop to the whole idea before it got far in the real world and there would be protests against it. People aren’t completely heartless even toward convicted murderers. So, it wasn’t scary to me because I know something like this isn’t going to happen. But it was interesting to imagine and that’s what books are for, right? Setting up scenarios that we’ll never be in so we can imagine. And this book managed to do that with flare and gruesome descriptions. I’ve heard there will be a sequel coming out this year, but I’m not sure if I’ll read it or not. It’s not about the same characters, which always annoys me about sequels. Plus, I don’t know how many more gory deaths I can read about. That being said, I’m sure the sequel will be just as entertaining as the first one if you are interested. Well, I’d better go run for my life now before a government hired serial killer gets me! Until next time, friends! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34521785-murdertrending |
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