REVIEW: Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder

156. Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder
Publication: Harlequin Teen (March 30, 2010), ebook, 320pp / ISBN 037321006X
Genre: YA Sci-fi, Dystopia

Read: November 26-28, 2011
Source: Singapore National Library

Summary from Amazon:

“Imagine every space in this room filled with people. Constantly being jostled and pushed. In the lower levels there is no quiet place. No peace. To a scrub, this room is paradise.”

I drew a deep breath. I’d spoken more in one burst to this stranger whose room I’d invaded than anyone else in weeks. And with a single word he could alert the Pop Cops and send me to the Chomper. We stared at each other for a few heartbeats.

Before I could retreat he said, “My name’s Riley Narelle Ashon. Any time you need peace, you’re welcome to use my hideaway.”

I’m Trella. I’m a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I’ve got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution.

Review

Let’s be honest here: I was disappointed with this book. After the amazingness that was Storm Glass, I expected something similar with Inside Out, only dystopian-y and more sci-fi than fantasy. While the basic story is good, and while the characters aren’t terrible, I just don’t think that Inside Out is the same level of awesomeness that Storm Glass is.

Part of the problem with sci-fi is that you have to make things believable in both a scientific and real-world sort of way. You can have aliens and spaceships and stuff, but you can’t hand-wave away stuff like you can in fantasy. If someone gets sucked out of an airlock? Unless they’re an android or something, that someone better not be able to throw a hammer back INSIDE the airlock 15 seconds after they’ve been exposed to outer space. For instance.

The author

I’m one of those people who, when something illogical/unbelievable happens in a story– well, I can’t stop obsessing over it, wondering why it’s there, why the author put it there, and what its purpose is in the story. And if multiple unbelievable things happen? Basically the entire book is ruined for me. I can’t focus on the story or the characters any longer; I can only focus on the stuff I can’t suspend my disbelief for.¹

I’m not entirely sure what good it’d do to list the things I found wonkadoodle, but I’ll highlight one of them so you can see what I mean. It’s not too spoilery, so I think it’ll work: The lower floors of Inside have over 18,000 people living in them, right? So it stands to reason that one wouldn’t necessarily be able to know ALL the scrubs everywhere. You probably wouldn’t even know all the scrubs who work in the same area as you. So then why is Trella admonished by multiple characters about not knowing her fellow scrubs? She knows the ones who were in her pseudo-family thing, which seems good enough to me. Why would she know some random scrub who died during a meeting one day? It’s simply not POSSIBLE for someone to know the names of 18,000 people, and if she never met that dude before (it was never said that she did!) then of COURSE she wouldn’t know who he was!

I understand that it’s meant to show that Trella is disconnected from her fellow scrubs, and in fact her reluctance to be around them is mentioned multiple times. So her not knowing people’s names (outside of her family group thing) is even more understandable– so then why is she constantly being yelled at by other people about the fact that she, y’know, doesn’t know who people are?

In the grand scheme of the book it’s probably not that big of a deal. But adding it to all the other little things that don’t quite make sense and which flung me out of the story whenever I ran across them, it makes for a terrible reading experience. Plus, the characters, their development over the course of the story, the relationships between them– it all seemed less than the same sorts of things were in Storm Glass. The story is probably about the same amount of excitement/intrigue, but the characters didn’t seem as developed or interesting and I HATED the romance. I might read the sequel just to see what happens, but, overall, I was terribly disappointed with Inside Out.

Rating

It was okay. Couldn’t stop obsessing over things that (to me) didn’t make sense, which ruined the book.

Buy

Get your own copy @ Amazon or BookDepository.com and support Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog through the power of affiliate earnings!

Other reviews

Rhapsody in Books Weblog: “I wasn’t crazy about this book, but it’s nevertheless appealing and has likable characters – even Trella, who clearly has her thorns out only to protect herself from hurt and pain. I did have a couple of quibbles though.”

Good Books and Good Wine: “Trella is exactly what I like in a protagonist. She is headstrong. She makes her own decisions and sticks to them. She’s also a loner, which I am able to relate to at times. I loved watching Trella grow and change throughout the novel. Honestly, she drives the story, her words will pull you in. The story is told in first person, and will grip you until the very last page.”

Plus tons more.

Notes

In other news, the SNL has Sea Glass available! Which means I can finally continue onward in the Glass trilogy.

Credit
The author’s photo is from the author’s website. It’s not mine!

Footnotes