The Unadjusteds by Marisa Noelle

It’s my stop with The Unadjusteds blog tour through The Write Reads. I want to thank both Dave and Marisa for including all of us in the tour! I can really say that I’m happy to have discovered this book and really enjoyed it! If you enjoy dystopian novels then you might like my list of YA dystopian novels.

The Unadjusteds Summary

The Unadjusteds is a young adult dystopian novel by Marisa Noelle. This book follows sixteen-year-old Silver Melody. She lives in a world where the majority of the citizens have modified DNA. Those that have altered DNA are called altered. The altered’s are the type of people that now have enhancements like wings, increased strength, or intelligence. Silver’s parents are the ones who made pills so others could alter their bodies but they would never force it on Silver. Taking the pill is something everyone around her is doing, but she’s very proud of the fact that she hasn’t done it.

When the president declares that all unadjusteds must take the pill in order to alter their state, Silver along with many others have to flee. Will Silver and all of the others be able to get out of the president’s grasps? Or will his army eventually get to them all?

What I thought about The Unadjusteds

So I have actually been reading a lot of young adult dystopian novels lately and quite frankly I’ve really enjoyed them. I’m really not that hard to please when it comes to dystopian novels. The only thing I really ask is please make the main characters strong. At least strong in some way. These types of books won’t work if the main character isn’t willing to stand up for himself or herself. The other thing I want with these types of books is please have a bit of world-building. I don’t like being thrown into a book and we don’t get any background information about what’s going. I like finding out exactly how this world came about and what exactly started it.

Even though I really did enjoy the book it did take me a bit longer to finish the story than I originally thought it would. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I honestly didn’t realize how long the book was when I first started it!

The Characters

I’m going, to be honest, I actually really like Silver. Some might find her annoying but I really don’t. For one I really like her stubbornness which is something that I don’t say too often. There have been times when an author has made the main character a little bit too stubborn and they end up being a little bit aggravating. They always need a perfect balance or at least being close to a perfect balance. That perfect balance is something that doesn’t always work in the real world but I don’t want to read a book where the characters aren’t willing to change their mindset on things.

I like the fact that Silver doesn’t want to take the pill to gain an alteration even though just about everyone else is. Granted she has very good reason to want to take it since she’s seen firsthand what the side effects can do. It does make me wonder if she would have changed her mind if she never saw anything bad happens once the pill was taken. Would she have folded in?

I am curious why Silver’s parents didn’t try pushing her into taking the pill. It seems logical that they would end up being the bad guy because they are the ones creating the pill. But I am glad that they didn’t force it on her. It’s nice reading a book like this where the parents are partially a part of the problem with what’s going on but don’t push it on those they love. This is something you see a lot in the real world where a parent thinks they are doing best even if it’s really not their decision.

The Plot

So, the only thing that really bothered me when it comes to the plot is that there really isn’t any background to why the pills were made. Who greenlit this idea for scientists to make? Who actually came up with the idea? Unless I missed something in the story I don’t recall Silver’s parents actually coming up with this idea. Her parents were just the ones who created the pills. Honestly, not much even needed to be there just as long as we got a little bit of info out of it.

Other than the fact that we really didn’t get any background in this story I still really ended up liking the plot. Thankfully, the pacing is pretty fast and keeps you there. That’s what it ended up doing for me anyways. That’s saying a lot because usually, it doesn’t really take a lot for me to lose interest in a book. If there’s a lot of downtimes then it will probably take me a while to actually finish the book. If there are a lot of side plots to the story then I will probably lose interest that way too. I can honestly say that I’m glad that there weren’t a lot of side plots with this story. When there was a side plot to the story it was pretty quick and then went on with the main focus of the book!

What did you guys think of the book?

If you like the sound of the book then you might like The Grace Year.