Kitty Doe has just been tested and found wanting. In a society where worth is dependant on one test, the number of stars you have makes a huge difference to your quality of like. Kitty has been given a three, and rather than resign herself to cleaning sewers, she chooses prostitution instead. Little does she know that she is going to become the next Lila Hart.
I picked this novel out to listen to, because the idea of complete face-lifts fascinated me. Then I kept listening because Kitty wanted to make me like her because she was ‘spunky’. Then I was half-way through the novel, and I’d become invested in her. But then the novel neared the end and the author lost me for the sheer repetitiveness of Kitty’s actions and issues.
I didn’t understand the picture on the front of the novel. Not that I spent too much time looking at it since it was an audio book. For a long while, until Kitty discovers that someone else has been masked, I didn’t even realise that the three marks on the back of her neck were Roman Numerals (there we go, I gave you a heads-up).
The exposure of the class system seems obvious to me, even as Kitty protests that ‘everyone is equal’. Breaking down the system that holds everyone in place seems dangerous, and it is dangerous. But Kitty is always consoled by the fact that she just has to protect Benji.
Oh Benji. You are so one-dimensional. And your relationship with Kitty is just as simple. You love her, she loves you, we kiss, we never do anything wrong. Ugh. Sickening. It’s all about them! Not anything else. Kitty seems selfish and entirely too self-reliant to ‘deserve’ someone as ‘pure’ as Benji.
At the beginning when I realised this was a series, I was quite excited that the adventures would continue after this novel. But at the conclusion, I was quite set on the idea that I didn’t want to read the next ones. Three stars – it’s readable, but you need to be tolerant of Romeo and Juliet love stories combined with a somewhat repetitive inner dialogue.
