Arclight by Josin L. McQuein | Book Review

(Definitely not crazy about this cover.)

Arclight takes place far, far in the future.  The entire book is set within one enclosed community, and the people living there aren't really sure whether or not there are any other communities out there.  Instead of a fence with a razor-wire top, their community is surrounded by a ring of really bright high-power lights, called the Arclight.  Beyond the Arclight is the Gray and beyond that is the dark.  And in the dark are scary things; aliens.  If you are caught out in the dark you can get infected by the Fade, and that will lead to death.  No one has ever known anyone to survive the dark... until Marina shows up at the Arclight.

Marina is a teen struggling to figure out how she fits.  She's the only person to have ever come out of the dark.  She's ostracized because the rest of the community believes she draws the Fade to the community.  Some of her peers outright hate her because their parents died bringing her in from the dark.  Making it all more confusing and difficult to bear:  Marina has absolutely no memory of her life before she arrived at Arclight the year before.  Where did she come from?  Did she have a family?  Where does she fit in Arclight?

This book definitely gave my brain a workout!  It's a very different world from the one we live in.  And Josin L. McQuein doesn't give the reader much time to adjust to the world, as we see it all happening from Marina's eyes.

A great story, but there were a few points that didn't quite jive with me.  A few dichotomies between what the characters were saying was happening and what actually happens.  And some pieces fell into place a little too quickly for belief.

Last little gripe:  I didn't really like Marina very much at first.  It took about half the book before I started to empathize with her much.

I had read tons of reviews just absolutely raving about Arclight and it just fell a little flat for me.  Not a bad book by any stretch, and I'll probably read the sequel, but not one that I'm going to go shouting about in the streets.