Sylo

SYLO - D.J. MacHale The first thing I noticed about in the first couple pages of SYLO is how straightforward and kind of dull the writing was. It lacked atmosphere. As I was reading along, there were moments when I started to like the book, but then Tucker would say or do something stupid and I would be back to disliking it again. The thing is, I never hated the story. But I never liked the characters one bit. Especially since they were incredibly flat and I couldn't figure out their motivations or personalities. The book starts off with a bang but quickly gets boring. I thought this was really freaking weird. It's a Sci-Fi Dystopia and those are usually paced really quickly, and there is a point where it picks up again, but I specifically marked page 56 as a boring spot. The first chapter was really exciting and riveting, and aside from the flat writing, quickly caught my attention. But it fizzles out quickly. So I definitely need to mention the uneven pacing in the beginning. The other thing that really irritated me about SYLO is how stupid the MC is. I love my characters flawed and real, but I have a hard time when they keep making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. He actually takes a drug from a stranger and ingests it. And it's not like it was pot or something he was aware of. It's a completely unknown substance and he has NO IDEA what it is going to do to him. Not to mention, he is aware that it has KILLED someone and he still takes it. No. Just no.There is a point in the novel though (probably about halfway) where I became engaged in the plot again and started to like what I was reading. It was definitely not perfect because of the characters and writing, but I have to give the author kudos for a plot that through me for a loop. I could not figure out what was going on. I had a couple of theories but both turned out to be wrong. That's good, right? It's hard though because all throughout the book, the MC keeps doing stupid things. He immediately thinks SYLO is the enemy without one lick of proof. It's all speculation. SYLO does some bad things, but how does he know they are not the good guys? He doesn't. And this made me angry. Based on the disappointing ending and everything else, I really wanted to give this book a two, but I can't justify that because I did enjoy the story to a point. There are just a lot of missing technical elements here that made me have to knock down a couple of stars. And the ending is just...not okay, in my opinion. The reader was led to believe that they would get some answers at the end. And no...aside from one reveal that wasn't even that major, you get NOTHING. It's such a cheap ploy to read the next book. It's not really a cliffhanger but it leaves you hanging in the worst way and that's just really annoying. Very frustrating finish.