Under the Never Sky
There are some novels whose reputation outruns them. Who everyone has heard of. That are somewhat famous in their own genre and that everyone seem to love. One of these books are Veronica Rossi’s Under the Never Sky. I’ve heard so much about it, for years now, and so my expectations was high, naturally. They were, unfortunately, not reached.
This is a story set out in the future and we get to follow the two main characters, Aria and Perry. Aria lives in Reverie, in a protected pod where she spends all her days in the Realms. Perry is an Outsider who battles the woods, other tribes and, foremost, the Aether. Their paths shouldn’t cross but do anyway when Aria, in search for answers about her mother, enters a damage part of the pod with some friends. Perry, in search of food for his tribe, enters the same part of the pod at the same time. He sees the horrific things that happens there that night, the same things that later on gets Aria thrown out from Reverie, to die on the outside. Out there she, yet again, stumbles across Perry and together they make an unlikely alliance. They will help each other reach two different goals, but the road is long and crooked and they meet many hoops and problems along the way, all the while growing closer to each other.
My hopes for this one was high, higher then I really want to admit. After hearing so much I expected something of a masterpiece, really, something like The Hunger Games and Divergent. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to either one. It wasn’t particularly bad, it just wasn’t good enough. Over the years, the genre of dystopian YA has grown a lot and to be able to stand out there now you need to be better than good. You need to be amazing, splendid, radiant. Under the Never Sky was okay in ever aspect, but, like I said, that’s not enough.
The writing was good, nothing extraordinary. Some parts of the novel made me want to read more and some parts didn’t entice me to read at all. There were days when I didn’t read as much as a sentence just because I couldn’t find the energy to pick up the book. The story in itself was certainly interesting, but it wasn’t much more than 370 pages and for a novel of that size there were surprisingly much “dead weight” so to speak. Aria and Perry need to travel a bit and the only way they can do that is on foot, so a large part of the novel was really about walking day in and day out and usually alone. It’s an important part of the story, not just because that’s they’re only way of transportation, but also because Aria sees and learns a lot of new things and, first and foremost, because she and Perry grow closer. But after a few days, eating, walking, sleeping and talking/not talking becomes a little dull.
The entire novel really only focuses on two people – Aria and Perry. Everything is centered around them and, honestly, that is a bit dull as well. The story is told from both perspective, in third person, which gives you a bigger picture, knowing how both feel and what they think. I believe that if there had been a few more characters involved in a bigger part of the book it had been a better read with a bigger view of their world. (They do met people, I just want to be clear about that. They’re not alone all the time Though it might feel like that). Perry’s friend, Roar, makes an appearance and turns into something quite important, but just like the rest of the book, he feels empty. Like Rossi missed something when she wrote the story. Some important part, a spark, both in the characters and in the story. Something that made it go from … to !!! if you can explain it like that. Under the Never Sky neither touched nor moved me, it was, simply put, just good.
One thing that bothered me a bit was the name of the characters. That’s one thing that is very important to me and here they felt… well, empty. Maybe, if the characters had been stronger, the names wouldn’t have bothered me. But they did. Most of them were short, four or five letters. Some were beautiful, but most were dull. Like Roar, for example. I expected his personality to have something to do with his name, but I didn’t really pick up on that while reading. That was a bit of a disappointment, but maybe there will be more about names and their meanings in the following two books.
I don’t know if I’ve read too many books in this genre but this one just didn’t make the cut. I’ve read many other that are a lot better than this one and it saddens me since I had such high hopes for it. I don’t know if I will read the rest of the trilogy, maybe curiosity and hope that the next two are better will drive me to do it, but right now I can think of other books more deserving of my time.
This is a story set out in the future and we get to follow the two main characters, Aria and Perry. Aria lives in Reverie, in a protected pod where she spends all her days in the Realms. Perry is an Outsider who battles the woods, other tribes and, foremost, the Aether. Their paths shouldn’t cross but do anyway when Aria, in search for answers about her mother, enters a damage part of the pod with some friends. Perry, in search of food for his tribe, enters the same part of the pod at the same time. He sees the horrific things that happens there that night, the same things that later on gets Aria thrown out from Reverie, to die on the outside. Out there she, yet again, stumbles across Perry and together they make an unlikely alliance. They will help each other reach two different goals, but the road is long and crooked and they meet many hoops and problems along the way, all the while growing closer to each other.
My hopes for this one was high, higher then I really want to admit. After hearing so much I expected something of a masterpiece, really, something like The Hunger Games and Divergent. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to either one. It wasn’t particularly bad, it just wasn’t good enough. Over the years, the genre of dystopian YA has grown a lot and to be able to stand out there now you need to be better than good. You need to be amazing, splendid, radiant. Under the Never Sky was okay in ever aspect, but, like I said, that’s not enough.
The writing was good, nothing extraordinary. Some parts of the novel made me want to read more and some parts didn’t entice me to read at all. There were days when I didn’t read as much as a sentence just because I couldn’t find the energy to pick up the book. The story in itself was certainly interesting, but it wasn’t much more than 370 pages and for a novel of that size there were surprisingly much “dead weight” so to speak. Aria and Perry need to travel a bit and the only way they can do that is on foot, so a large part of the novel was really about walking day in and day out and usually alone. It’s an important part of the story, not just because that’s they’re only way of transportation, but also because Aria sees and learns a lot of new things and, first and foremost, because she and Perry grow closer. But after a few days, eating, walking, sleeping and talking/not talking becomes a little dull.
The entire novel really only focuses on two people – Aria and Perry. Everything is centered around them and, honestly, that is a bit dull as well. The story is told from both perspective, in third person, which gives you a bigger picture, knowing how both feel and what they think. I believe that if there had been a few more characters involved in a bigger part of the book it had been a better read with a bigger view of their world. (They do met people, I just want to be clear about that. They’re not alone all the time Though it might feel like that). Perry’s friend, Roar, makes an appearance and turns into something quite important, but just like the rest of the book, he feels empty. Like Rossi missed something when she wrote the story. Some important part, a spark, both in the characters and in the story. Something that made it go from … to !!! if you can explain it like that. Under the Never Sky neither touched nor moved me, it was, simply put, just good.
One thing that bothered me a bit was the name of the characters. That’s one thing that is very important to me and here they felt… well, empty. Maybe, if the characters had been stronger, the names wouldn’t have bothered me. But they did. Most of them were short, four or five letters. Some were beautiful, but most were dull. Like Roar, for example. I expected his personality to have something to do with his name, but I didn’t really pick up on that while reading. That was a bit of a disappointment, but maybe there will be more about names and their meanings in the following two books.
I don’t know if I’ve read too many books in this genre but this one just didn’t make the cut. I’ve read many other that are a lot better than this one and it saddens me since I had such high hopes for it. I don’t know if I will read the rest of the trilogy, maybe curiosity and hope that the next two are better will drive me to do it, but right now I can think of other books more deserving of my time.