REVIEW: The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann

98. The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann
Publication: Aladdin (August 30, 2011), ARC paperback, 390pp / ISBN 1442407689
Genre: MG Sci-fi/Fantasy, Dystopia

Read: August 11, 2011
Source: Publisher (thank you!)

Summary from Amazon:

When Alex finds out he is Unwanted, he expects to die. That is the way of the people of Quill. Each year, all the thirteen-year-olds are labeled as Wanted, Necessary, or Unwanted. Wanteds get more schooling and train to join the Quillitary. Necessaries keep the farms running. Unwanteds are set for elimination.

It’s hard for Alex to leave behind his twin, Aaron, a Wanted, but he makes peace with his fate—until he discovers that instead of a “death farm,” what awaits him is a magical place called ArtimÉ. There, Alex and his fellow Unwanteds are encouraged to cultivate their creative abilities and use them magically. Everything Alex has ever known changes before his eyes, and it’s a wondrous transformation.

But it’s a rare, unique occurrence for twins to be divided between Wanted and Unwanted, and as Alex and Aaron’s bond stretches across their separation, a threat arises for the survival of ArtimÉ that will pit brother against brother in an ultimate magical battle.

Review

I was really excited when I got this book, mostly because I had tried to get it during BEA but was scared off by the truly massive line leading up to LM’s table. When I DID get it later, and when I read the first two chapters or so, I was thrilled. This is an awesome book, I thought. Those first few chapters were terrifying and exciting and really chilling, just like all good dystopian books should be. But then. Oh, but then.

Somewhere around a third of the way into the book, I noticed something. The Unwanteds had gotten…dull. It had lost its edge from those first few chapters. It had become kind of boring and ridiculous and a bit disappointing. I kept reading it, hoping that the awesomeness from the beginning of the book would come back, but it never did. The ending was slightly better, but slogging through the middle was horrible.

The disparity from the beginning of the book and the rest of it was weird. The first part read like a really solid MG/YA dystopian book. It knew what it was doing and what it was doing was scaring the pants off the reader. But the rest of the book? Read like it was trying to cuddle the reader gently to sleep instead.

The author

I don’t think it helped that the dialogue was, for the most part, pretty unbearable. It was unbearable like how the dialogue from preschooler TV shows are unbearable to an adult watching them, and it dragged the book down even more. The characterizations were also pretty hit-or-miss; most of the kids were okay, but the adults were a little bit too much Merlinesque, with no other personality traits.

Also– okay, look. Dystopias already require a pretty heavy suspension of disbelief thing when you read them, right? But The Unwanteds took that even further, because not only is it a kind of sci-fi dystopian book, it is also an art-is-magic kind of fantasy book. People fight each other with origami animals and paintbrushes and stuff, and it’s presented as this totally normal thing.

No one questions how the hell people can paint doorways into existence or anything. They just do it. And that is completely weird when the dystopian part of the country thrives on not questioning anything, but the utopian part supposedly encourages it. But no one asks “how is it that these paper clips become deadly weapons”?

Finally, I thought it was really ridiculous how in the utopia they’re taught to be tolerant and kind and so forth, but then they think everybody in the dystopia is “evil.” Not “misguided,” or “confused,” but “evil.” A 12-year-old kid is evil? Really, The Unwanteds? You don’t think he’s just brainwashed? You can’t have compassion for a 12-year-old living in a really messed-up society?

I know this review is mostly complaints, and for that I’m kind of sorry. But you have to understand: this book was so disappointing. It started off great, and then it got bogged down in all this ridiculous stuff. It didn’t know whether it was sci-fi or fantasy. It didn’t know how adults or kids talked. It didn’t know that calling kids “evil” is, actually, a really bad thing. And it didn’t know that it would have been much better if it had retained that kind of writing that was in the first part of the book. It could have kept all the ridiculous stuff if only it had also tried harder to be scary and thrilling, instead of cuddly and vaguely nauseating.

Perhaps the problem comes from this being Lisa McMann’s first MG book. I’ve noticed that sometimes newbie MG authors dumb down aspects of their book to make it “easier” for kids to digest, and that tends to result in a weaker novel. Books don’t need to be dumbed down for kids to understand them. If The Unwanteds had smartened up a bit, I’ve no doubt I would have enjoyed it way more.

Rating

I’ve nudged it up half a bird because of the awesome beginning, and because I can sort of see what it was trying to do (saying kids need to question stuff, whatever, etc.). But I’m still disappointed.

Buy

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Other reviews

Steph Su Reads: “THE UNWANTEDS contains distinctly dark themes of creativity versus logic, imagination versus asceticism, that make it darker than your usual magical children’s tale. This is part dystopia, after all. More sophisticated readers might find the literal impending war between creativity and pragmatism in the book a little too literal in terms of the book’s themes, but younger readers will probably get a kick out of the minimalization of gray areas.”

Book Chic Club: “I was really pulled into this story from the first page and I really enjoyed all the world-building that Lisa did for both Quill and Artime. It was just fascinating.”

An Abundance of Books: “Unfortunately the difference between the two countries were so black and white and made to be so obvious that I felt McMann was trying to hold her readers’ hand and point out the differences for us. I disliked her equally black and white take on creativity. In The Unwanteds it’s all about the arts, be it music, acting, pinging, or writing. It leaves no room for those who are scientifically minded. It takes a really creative person to invent or discover things. Engineers and scientists have to think outside the box in order to create something new. Also, there was a bit too much melodrama at times and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.”

Others can be found at the Book Blogs Search Engine.

Notes

I feel really terrible that this is another one of those books that everyone but me likes, but at least I’ve gotten over being nervous about posting my mostly-negative review.