Review: The Stolen Generation

★☆☆☆☆

From Goodreads:
Between 1972 and 1993 the Global Sector Council forced single mothers to have abortions.When those babies were aborted, their souls were stolen and attached to lab made children. Those children, together with a group known as the Rebellion are now fighting back. Freya 'Freddie' Faith Raner takes us on a whirlwind adventure as she and her soul sister search for their soul mother, look to over throw the global government, and make friends, and enemies, along the way.

A dystopian novel set in a parallel universe which split from our own timeline in the aftermath of the Second World War. Utopia isn't all that it seems, in a world where religion has been abolished, LGBT people have rights the world over, and food, shelter, and education are taken as given.

I try not to rely on the information given to me in the synopsis. The same info should be in the story as well. And here I am, reading the synopsis again and realising why the setting was confusing me from page one.
Prepare yourself for a four-hundred-page monologue spiced with more conversation stoppers than the most awkward Thanksgiving dinner. When your expectations aren't even high, to begin with, and the desperate feeling in the pit of your stomach promises no good, you still plough through. You still continue even though the voice in the back of your head urges you to give up. I have promised to read every single book I take for reviewing to the end and these are the moments that I really regret that promise.

Why may want to ask? I must have some grounds for the statements I have made. Why, yes. Nice of you to ask.

An overpowered female character without any actual power. The main character, Freya ''Freddie'' Raner, is the Sector 8's leader's successor after he passes. She has no real experience in leading people, no superpowers (which would be a legit reason for people to look up to her) or reasons that even remotely concern other people than herself. The entire book portrays her as the one almighty who knows everything and can do anything. When in reality she is a little girl on the run from home looking for a place to belong. And the place that she finds herself in plants her with the illusion of power and other just accept this. Freya suddenly just takes over the entire Rebellion and no says anything. If one dares to argue against her, then poof, they're gone before anyone else dares to say anything.

The way it was written. I'm fine with classics that are not so action-packed or full of monologue. But the writing style fits the story told. You can't tell a story about a Revolution with multiple characters fighting and plotting without letting them talk to each other or let the reader know whatäs going on. It was like following the entire story behind a soundproof window with the main character's narration going in the background. I just wanted to be there, in the story, not just outside looking in.

Also, people die. Long lost relatives are found. Relationships are born and torn apart. And I felt nothing. Sterile is the word that comes to mind. No emotions at all. It was like a game of Simon says: Simon says, Freddie feels sad. Okay, Freddie must now feel sad. But she isn't crying, trembling, staring into the distance, detaching herself from others, acting overly positive. Nothing. No showing at all, purely just telling me how they feel. And that makes one frustrated. Because you want the drama. You want them to react in some way to give the reader an accurate view of what is truly going on.

Since I read the synopsis again, I now know that the book is set in a parallel universe where humans have equal rights regardless of their religion (since only one religion is allowed) or sexual orientation or how they see themselves as a human. But they are not equal with people who are born to privileged families of Sector leaders or researchers. Even though the author claims that all sexual orientations are equal and normal to the world the characters live in, it definitely is not true. The awkwardness of meeting some characters for the first time when they just blurt out that they have two mothers or are third-gendered. Like, hi, nice to meet you too. And yes, my dog is wary of you because you do not identify yourself as either one of the two genders included in the binarism.

You may now have gotten the general idea of why I strongly disliked this book. I don't even want to touch base with the abortion issue presented or the way there was no character development in the main cast, or anything else. I'll now wash my hands off of this book and move on to something that irritates me less.