Review: Control by: Lydia Kang

Control (#1) by: Lydia Kang Dec. 2013)

400 pages

Genre: YA/Sci-Fi/Dystopian

Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers

Source: The Library

Purchase: Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository

Goodreads Summary: An un-putdownable thriller for fans of Uglies

When a crash kills their father and leaves them orphaned, Zel knows she needs to protect her sister, Dyl. But before Zel has a plan, Dyl is taken by strangers using bizarre sensory weapons, and Zel finds herself in a safe house for teens who aren’t like any she’s ever seen before—teens who shouldn't even exist. Using broken-down technology, her new friends’ peculiar gifts, and her own grit, Zel must find a way to get her sister back from the kidnappers who think a powerful secret is encoded in Dyl’s DNA.

A spiraling, intense, romantic story set in 2150—in a world of automatic cars, nightclubs with auditory ecstasy drugs, and guys with four arms—this is about the human genetic “mistakes” that society wants to forget, and the way that outcasts can turn out to be heroes.

My Review

Control is unique, fun, at times intense and funny, and definitely weird. Now hold tight and try to follow my somewhat rambling review of Control's quirks.

Zel is a main character that may be a little frustrating, but not only grows on you but grows up a lot and really starts becoming more brave and strong and confident throughout the novel. I still hate that at times Zel is so down on how she looks and she is overly cruel about her sister's beauty with a little bit of slut-shaming, but I also think this shows how important it is to love yourself in its own backwards way. Her sister, Dyl, is her opposite in many ways although the reader doesn't get a lot of time with Dyl since she was kidnapped. The other very weird characters (the other teens with unique qualities such as extra arms and other different things) are complex are not ones to be easily forgotten. Although they come off cold at first they grow on you and are very interesting. I was worried that reading about these teens with  the very bizarre attributes would be too weird for me, but it wasn’t and actually shines light on the fact that no matter how different we may be we are all still just human beings and all still deserve to be treated as such.

The story takes place in 2150 and shines a very interesting light on what the world would be like in the future, and is somewhat believable as well. The story is unique, but there are also a good amount of basic plot devises that were used making it predictable at times. The main thing I didn’t enjoy about Control was that for a small chunk of the book I thought the plot didn’t really move forward, and I got just a tiny bit bored, answers were not being given and I was getting frustrated. Luckily it didn't last long. I did enjoy the science stuff in this book, the DNA mutations, the automatic riding pods, the crazy drugs, and all the other crazy stuff.

I’m thinking those of you who like X-Men would like Control. It was a solid book and I plan on reading the sequel.