This ARC was provided by the publisher VIA NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Synopsis: Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie’s only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie’s head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator’s grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations’ plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. . .  -Goodreads

Review: I had so many back and forth moments with what I thought of this book that it was really difficult to decide what to rate it. As I was reading I think it went from a four, to a three, to a two and back to a three. There was so much potential in this story, but the execution just left a lot to be desired. Plus, on another weird note… the first few chapters of this book left be with a weird sense of deja vu. I felt like I’d read it before. Very weird.

The concept of Starters was great and offered a lot of potential for a really interesting dystopian read. The Spore War has left only children and super long lived seniors alive and a big, evil corporation begins renting out ‘Starter’ bodies to the seniors, or Enders. My problem is that the society is never really established for the reader, we don’t get a lot of background on exactly what happened to the adults, why the seniors live for so long now or what turned society against the swarms of unclaimed minors. More answers would have been really helpful in getting me more engaged in the story.

+3 points for a very cool cover. I’ve only seen the ebook version but apparently the print cover is pretty fantastic and definitely stands out on a shelf.

The flow of the story was a little hit and miss where some plot points would have you madly flipping pages, wondering what was about to happen and others felt disjointed or forced. At times it felt like things were happening just for the shock value and not because it fit well with the story, and we all know how frustrating that can be.

Not to say that Starters was all bad, because it definitely wasn’t. I have a feeling there will be a lot of people who really love this book, but as someone who has been reading a lot of dystopian lately I don’t think this one was really for me and I doubt I’ll be picking up the next book in the series.

Buy the book @Amazon (US) @Amazon (CAN)

Rating:

Second Opinions:
@Mundie Moms
@Icey Books
@Once Upon a Prologue