Book Review - Veracity by Laura Bynum

Title: Veracity
Author: Laura Bynum
Year: 2010
Page: 384
Genre: Fiction - Dystopian

New to me author? Yes
Read this author again? Maybe
Tearjerker? No
Where did it take place? US
FTC Disclosure: Borrowed from the library

Summary (from goodreads.com): 
Harper Adams was six years old in 2012 when an act of viral terrorism wiped out one-half of the country's population. Out of the ashes rose a new gove ...more Harper Adams was six years old in 2012 when an act of viral terrorism wiped out one-half of the country's population. Out of the ashes rose a new government, the Confederation of the Willing, dedicated to maintaining order at any cost. The populace is controlled via government-sanctioned sex and drugs, a brutal police force known as the Blue Coats, and a device called the slate, a mandatory implant that monitors every word a person speaks. To utter a Red-Listed, forbidden word is to risk physical punishment or even death.But there are those who resist. Guided by the fabled "Book of Noah," they are determined to shake the people from their apathy and ignorance, and are prepared to start a war in the name of freedom. The newest member of this resistance is Harper -- a woman driven by memories of a daughter lost, a daughter whose very name was erased by the Red List. And she possesses a power that could make her the underground warriors' ultimate weapon -- or the instrument of their destruction.
In the tradition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Laura Bynum has written an astonishing debut novel about a chilling, all-too-plausible future in which speech is a weapon and security comes at the highest price of all. 

First Sentence:
The deeper I get into the prairie, the more I realize that what I'd been told about the wastelands is false.

  
Why did I pick this book?
I've been enjoying Dystopian books. When I read Brizmus Blogs Books' review, I thought I'd give it a try since the premise sounds interesting! What does veracity mean? And chilling? I love reading chilling books!


My thoughts:

• Sadly, I didn't finish this book. I don't know if I just wasn't in the right mood or what, but I just couldn't get into it. I stopped around p73.

• The book alternates between "past" and "present" (even though "present" is really the future for us in real time). I enjoyed reading the parts about the past, when the main protagonist, Harper (like that name!), was still a girl in High School. Maybe if more pages were devoted to the past in the first 73 pages, I'd have kept reading

• The "present" time was all mixed up in June and August of the same year (at least in the 73 pages I read) and NOT in order!! so in between going back and forth between Harper's childhood and adulthood, it jumped around during her adulthood as well, which added to the confusion - e.g. childhood, August present, childhood, June present, August present, childhood, June present (just making this up, but it was like that...)

• I am disappointed I couldn't get into it. If you have read it and really think I should give it a try again, let me know!

 
Rating: 0 Star - Did Not Finish