Countdown by Michelle Rowen

I am going to begin this review rather bluntly in saying that I would not recommend this book. Honestly, I'm not quite sure how this got published. I've read amazon books for free that are better than this one, and I must say I despise the poor writing and slow story lines in free ebooks. So you can imagine this must have been pretty awful for me to say such a thing.

Let's start from the beginning. The writing style? Nothing particularly interesting about it. It's not bad, though maybe a bit lacking, but not godawful. The cover? A little cheesy, but it caught my attention! Then in the summary promised a Hunger Games-like book? Sold! If only it were that easy.

Rogan, the main boy of the story I will admit to liking very much. I'm not sure why, but something about him was really fun. Kira on the other hand? I did not like her, not at all. She was trying way to hard to be like Katniss, and honestly I think the author was just trying to hook people on this story because of their love for the Hunger Games.

I wanted to like this, I really did. In fact, for the first one hundred pages I really did like it! I'd read a few poor reviews about it, and up until that point I was wondering what could have spurred such negative thoughts! Then the games ended, and there was still one hundred pages left in the story! The story line started getting really weird, and at that point I couldn't take it anymore. There were conspiracies, and hidden houses and all sorts of things that I just could take.

As for the romance, it progressed way too quickly. For people supposed to hate each other, they sure fell in love quickly! Rogan almost seemed to go into the games with his mind set on falling in love with her! From the first seen he seems ridiculously devoted to her! Honestly while I adore a love story as much as the next girl, it has to feel genuine, and this was anything but.

Another thing that really bothered me was the way it was obvious the author was setting everything up. Unlike a good story, things didn't flow. I didn't become lost in the story. Normally you can emerge yourself and feel like you're there with the characters. They make their own decisions, and the story flows in a way that seems real. This had none of those qualities. Especially when it got to the part where Kira was dressed like slut, it was just too much. Unfortunately I felt like the author was literally telling me the story, and begging me to believe that these people and actions are real.

The world building in this story is truly terrible. I cannot even picture the world because there is so little to go off of! It feels like this story is occurring in a white box floating in the nothingness of space, and for a dystopian novel, that is a very bad thing.

I'm not sure if there is a sequel, and if there is I am not interested in reading it. If you're looking for a good book to read, I strongly encourage you to steer clear of this one.

One Star

Yours Truly,

Rosalie

Countdown on Goodreads