Review: Pawn by Aimee Carter

Title: Pawn (The Blackcoat Rebellion #1)
Author: Aimee Carter
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release date: November 26th 2013
Source: Netgalley
Format: egalley

Rating: 3.5/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

YOU CAN BE A VII IF YOU GIVE EVERYTHING.

For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country.

If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked - surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter.

There's only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered, the same one that got her killed, and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that's not her own, she must decide which path to choose and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she's only beginning to understand.

I have read several dystopian books and I ´m still one of those that see a dystopian novel without even reading the synopsis and immediately add it to my wishlist and that was the case with Pawn, and in the truth I did not have any preconceived ideas about the book or had great expectations about it, I just knew that it was a dystopian novel and I had to read it.

The idea of Pawn is really interesting, is about a world where society is divided in ranges from I to VI, I being the lowest and VI the most you can hope for and your job is assigned according to your range and that´s the job that you will do for the rest of your life. And all citizens have a clean slate until their seventeen birthday when all citizens must take a test that will decided their rank.

So the story begins on Kitty´s seventeen birthday, she receives a III as a result of her test, and she´s assigned to do a job in another city but because of her boyfriend Benjy she doesn´t want to leave, so she is willing to do anything to stay and wait for Benjy´s seventeen birthday and to be together. So when someone offers her the option to stay in town and change her III to a VII, she immediately accept it., because only a Hart can have a VII and the Harts rule the country.

What I liked about the story is that is entertaining and immediately begins with the action, I didn´t feel it slow-pacing and has several situations that had me wanting to know what would happen next. What I didn´t liked was that Kitty is too naive or she´s just happier without knowing what really happens in her world, since she lives in a very strict government where stealing an orange can earn you a bullet in the head, where the Is are sent "elsewhere ", the citizens can only have a child and if they have an "extra " he/she is sent to a group home or "elsewhere ", etc.; plus many of Kitty´s actions I saw them a little illogical or contradictory, since her priority is to keep her boyfriend Benjy safe, but more than once she does things that put him in danger.

Overall, it is a okay dystopian novel with a lot of potential, as the idea is interesting but reminds me of other novels of the same genre. Pawn has a bit of suspense, a light romance mainly because Benjy and Kitty had been dating since before the story begins, but the book is entertaining and at least kept me interested until the end because I wanted to know what would happen with Kitty.

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