Review: Pawn by Aimee Carter

Title: Pawn (The Blackcoat Rebellion, #1)
Author: Aimee Carter
Publisher: HarlequinTeen
Publication date: November 26, 2013

Genre(s): Young Adult (Dystopian)

Source: Publisher

Format: ARC

Pages: 346

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For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country.

If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked—surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter.

There's only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered, the same one that got her killed …and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that's not her own, she must decide which path to choose—and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she's only beginning to understand.

Pawn was such a disappointment. There I said it. I was really.. and I mean really looking forward to it because the synopsis promised a comeback for the dystopians with an actual dystopian plot line. Unfortunately the lack of likability in all of the characters as well as the absurdity with the way they behave and what is the norm for them kind of ticked me off. 

Maybe I should explain what I mean by what I wrote above. The main protagonist, Kitty, is a Doe (her last name, like Jane Doe given to all unidentified corpses), meaning an orphan. Her only way of going up the social and life ladder is to ace the test every 17 (or 16?) year old has to take. Unfortunately Kitty gets a III.. which is a far cry from the royal VII as well as the desired V or even IV. Now she has to work in the sewers.. all the way in Nevada.. so what does she decide? oh.. just work at a prostitution house for 4 months until her boyfriend takes his test.. la di la di la.. oh so normal.. WHAT?! HOLD UP! I am at AWE at how NORMAL it is for this girl to decide to work as a prostitute and all her boyfriend say is 'I promise I'll get a VI and get you out of there'… say what? also.. some scenes in which people go 'hunting' but instead of hunting animals they hunt people who have ben exiled.. and when Kitty finds that out she's horrified for a couple of paragraphs.. then BACK TO NORMAL.. Another horrifying point is when someone she knew for a long time dies because of Kitty and the next couple of pages were dedicated to Kitty JUSTIFYING that it is for the best and that person really was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just… the logic and lack of humanity in ALL the characters, the supposed good and evil is INFURIATING. I really couldn't stomach all characters and I really disliked every single one of them. 

Other than that, I felt that the plot line was wasted in terms of plain obvious revelations occurring in the book that just felt a bit too unrealistic. I had high hopes in regards to the dystopian side of the novel, and while I do like the incorporation of rebellion, I just can't understand some of the dynamic that are present in the novel. So many disconnected things happen in this novel that I wished were linked in a better way. The book felt choppy and I honestly started skimming paragraphs towards the end because I started getting restless (Reminded me of my restlessness when I read The Diviners). Unfortunately I am not going to be reading the sequel, because this whole book was a huge disappointment.  

Other books by Aimee Carter:
The Goddess Test
Goddess Interrupted
The Goddess Inheritance