Some Fine Day
Author: Kat Ross
Genre: YA SF
Publisher: Strange Chemistry/Angry Robot
Release Date: July 1, 2014 (North America and digital); Jul 3, 2014 (UK)
Note: this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Blurb:
Sixteen-year-old Jansin Nordqvist is on the verge of graduating from the black ops factory known as the Academy. She’s smart and deadly and knows three things with absolute certainty.
She knows that when the world flooded and civilization retreated deep underground, there was no one left on the surface.
She knows that the only species to thrive there are the toads, a primate/amphibian hybrid with a serious mean streak.
Most of all, she knows there’s no place on Earth where you can hide from the hypercanes, continent-sized storms that have raged for decades.
Jansin has been lied to. On all counts. Faced with the truth in the form of a charismatic young survivor named Will, Jansin vows that her former masters will regret making her what she is…
What I Liked:
This book has so many good things in it. Seriously. I enjoyed it so much, I can’t even tell you (I’ll try though, since that’s the point of this review :P).
Ahem. Anyway. One thing I liked about this book is the characters.
The main character, Jansin, is a fairly typical YA heroine in that she’s strong-willed and rebellious. She’s not afraid to go against her “masters” (for lack of a better term). But she’s also naive about some things. Oh sure, she knows pretty much all there is to know about living in Raven Rock and being in the military, but because she’s so focused on life in the military as a black ops soldier, there are things she doesn’t know about. And I expected that, so for me it was realistic. Not everyone can be a polymath, and when you’ve spent the last eight years in one place focused on only one thing, then that becomes all you know. You know?
Her horror at discovering what her government/military actually knows (about life on the surface, the toads, even the hypercanes) is believable, and her shift from soldier to…well, not a soldier was thankfully not a sudden one. That to me would have been out of character. Jansin seems like the type to get as much information as possible before acting.
The other main characters are also interesting. And, truthfully, the whole world is interesting. It’s like Waterworld meets far future dystopian (but it’s not really far-future — I think it’s set around 2090).
It’s seriously fascinating. The world-building here is fantastic.
The book covers so many “heavy” topics without getting preachy — the hypercanes (the main reason society went underground) was the result of man-made climate change. The book also delves into genetics, bioethics/ethics, biological/chemical warfare, sociopolitical relations and boundaries, Us vs Them (in so many different ways), military rule, social/class hierarchies, and so on. Ms. Ross does a fantastic job of incorporating all of these topics into one book and making it cohesive (and not preachy).
Really, there’s so much about this book that I like.
What I Didn’t Like
Not a whole lot, to be honest. I would’ve liked to have learned more about the prefectures and how Raven Rock became so militaristic and tyrannical and how the prefectures interact with each other.
I’m assuming not much has changed from how countries interact now, since inter-prefecture war is looming. Of course, we’re in Jansin’s head and these are not the things a sixteen year old usually thinks about, so I wasn’t surprised that the book didn’t really go into it. But it would’ve been nice to find that out.
Also, a map could’ve been helpful. I kept trying to see where the prefectures were in relation to today’s geography, and until the locations were mentioned, I had no idea. Because the world is now mostly under water. You know. But because the locations where mentioned later in the book, not having a map isn’t really a big deal.
My Thoughts
Oh there’s so much I like about this book. Under a different author it may not have worked so well, considering the number of “heavy” topics that are touched on. But it worked well here, and reading this book is a treat. It was such an enjoyable read. I checked the author’s website but couldn’t find any information about a sequel, which gave me a sad.
I would love to spend more time in this world with these characters, so I’m hoping that there’s a sequel planned!
[rating:4.5/5]