Book Review: Alternity by Mari Mancusi

Alternity

Mari Mancusi

Publication Date: October 19th 2012

Publisher: NLA Digital Lia\ison Platform LLC

Pages: 236

Genre:  Scifi, Dystopia, Young Adult

Imagine waking up in a post-apocalyptic, nightmare world--and being told your whole life is but a dream. Skye Brown thought she was your typical teen--good grades, hot boyfriend, and an afterschool job that pays her to play videogames. But then she started having the dreams.

In her dreams, there is no Earth. Only Terra, a bleak, underground wasteland where people live in squalor and oppression. In her dreams, there is no Skye--only Mariah, a rebel leader fighting against a vile, dystopian regime. And then there's Dawn, a handsome, but haunted solider who sees her as but an empty shell of the girl he once love--a betrayer he vows to hate forever, despite what she sees deep in his eyes.

Now, ripped between Dark Siders and club kids, the mundane and the mystic, Skye finds herself in a fight against time--to learn who she really is, where she belongs..and why. The shocking truth will have her questioning her own reality...and her heart.

What is real? What is a dream? And what in the world is going on? These are the questions going through our main character, Skye's head when she finds herself in the strange underground world from her dreams where everyone seems to think she is someone else named "Mariah".

Alternity is a Matrix-esque dystopian novel that is full of surprises. The story itself is satisfying enough and the mystery is well done. The characters aren't terrible, though they're not anything special, either. Due to her situation, however, Skye and the way people treated her still ends up being interesting to read about.

I felt like the romance may have happened too fast, but due to the whole situation surrounding the two of them, I can't really say for sure, it's hard to tell.

There are a few parts that I felt were a bit indulgent of the author, rather than natural to the storyline (such as the randomness of Mariah being trained in Japanese swordplay by a teacher of Japanese descent).

I can't go into too much detail with the review without spoiling it, due to the many twists and turns. For the most part it was far from bad, and ended up being an average read for me. One of the best things going for it is the unique way it puts classic and overdone tropes together.

My favourite part of the book is hands down the discovery of Earth being an elaborate game. I felt like much of the book was spent carefully foreshadowing this (the "quest" moment from Skye's cousin, and the whole game development that Skye is apart of for example) and disguising it (just the fact that the game is called Earth is enough to throw everyone off it's tracks in a very Matrix fashion).

And though I had started to suspect this fact, the next revelation was completely unexpected. Skye spends most of the book fighting with the fact that she's not Mariah, and when she is finally starting to accept that she really was once this person, it turns out she never was Mariah at all and that blew me away. It was a brilliant play by Mancusi.

The ending was carefully navigated by her as well. I felt like that was about to fall apart at any second (I kept looking at how many minutes left of reading time my Kindle predicted wondering how in the world things could wrap up nicely in time), but other than some rather over the top dramatic romatic utterings, it went perfectly fine with no pacing issues for me.

In conclusion, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a sci-fi or dystopian book that will surprise you. I recommend it to people who like epic romances. I found the world to be original in a saturated genre and setting (underground/sealed off dystopia type).

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