Thursday, August 31, 2017

This Body Won't Break ~ Lea McKee (earc) review [@LeaLately @weapenry]

This Body Won't Break: Part One (O-Negative #1)
Amazon Digital Services
September 05, 2017
109 pages
add to Goodreads/buy Kindle edition


The truth doesn’t always set you free.

Orphaned as a child, Joanna has lived her entire life in the care of the New Terra Alliance. On the verge of turning eighteen, Joanna eagerly awaits her release into what remains of society.

It was a beautiful lie.

Joanna was never meant to leave. She is part of the August Harvest, slated to die before the month’s end. With a rogue soldier’s promise to find her a way out, Joanna dares to hope. But if the NTA finds out what she knows, it won’t only be her own life at stake, but the life of the handsome soldier who has vowed to set her free.

Fans of Divergent, The Darkest Minds, and The Handmaid’s Tale will love this dystopian story of twisted secrets, romance, and page-turning suspense.

This Body Won’t Break is Book One of The O-Negative Series and will be published in 3 Parts (each approx. 25k words in length). Parts will be published on the first Tuesday of every month.

Lea McKee's This Body Won't Break is the first of the O-Negative Series, with each of the three installments being approximately 25,000 words and each release the first Tuesday of the month (September through November). Part One if more like a Part One of a larger, longer novel than most first novels in a series. (Though if you have read Tomorrow Girls: Behind the Gates by Eva Gray, you'll know what to expect in terms of length and ending style.)

I was a bit curious how the shorter length would work, if it would really feel like a full story  and be enough to really get me invested in the story and characters. It absolutely was. We are introduced to Joanna, find out that she is an orphan and so was brought up the New Terra Alliance in Zone Three.

Jo's 'room' seemed a bit like the cell's on The 100 (but with less art)

Through Jo's preparation for release, we learn a bit about NTA and how it operates -- and it definitely left me wanting to see more of the society.

Jo is unaware of most of what we learn just by reading the book's description but being there as she discovers it makes for a great start of the series. The setting of the book, as Joanna is turning eighteen, leaving the place she's lived as long as she can remember, feels very natural and the transition makes a great place to start the O-Negative Series.

This Body Won't Break seemed very well written and does a really nice job of introducing us to the characters and the society but without any info dump. We learn little bits through things Jo does or thinks or says - and what she discovers or is told later on. It's both satisfying and leaves you wanting more. The basis of their world is logical and sensical enough that you can understand it but still unique and creative. The only, small, complaint I might have was that, at times, the book could be a little heavy on the metaphors. They were good ones, but there were places where there were a lot of them.

Between what Jo has learned about the NTA and her planned role, the characters we've met and how the story ended, I am very much looking forward to Part Two,  out October third.









review copy recieved, via NetGalley thanks to author and Weapenry

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