Rated

by Melissa Grey

Societies thrive on order, and the Rating System is the ultimate symbol of organized social mobility.

The higher it soars, the more valued you are. The lower it plummets, the harder you must work to improve yourself. For the students at the prestigious Maplethorpe Academy, every single thing they do is reflected in their ratings, updated daily and available for all to see.

But when an act of vandalism sullies the front doors of the school, it sets off a chain reaction that will shake the lives of six special students -- and the world beyond.

Genres: Young Adult, Dystopia, Mystery, Science Fiction, Romance, Fiction, LGBT

323 pages, Hardcover

First published September 3, 2019

About the author

Melissa Grey penned her first short story at the age of twelve and hasn't stopped writing since. As an undergrad at Yale, she learned how ride a horse and shoot a bow and arrow at the same time. She also has a Masters in Art History but that's a much less useful skill.

She is the author of The Girl at Midnight trilogy, Rated, and the forthcoming The Valiant Ladies of Potosi.

To learn more about Melissa, visit melissa-grey.com and follow her on Twitter @meligrey.

Reviews

[jocelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars
This book is 1 part cheesy teen drama, 1 part group of misfits banding together, and 1 part technological dystopia. If you were to mix Fahrenheit 451 and The Perfect Score (2004), you'd have a good idea of what to expect.

In this society, everyone is rated based on a myriad of factors, but those who perform the best at things deemed socially acceptable are obviously at the top. This affects - and is affected by - all aspects of one's life. For example: the head of multiple clubs, daughter of a doctor and an engineer, and shoe-in for valedictorian is rated very high. She not only does well herself in school, but her parents' careers also solidify her good rating. She is one of six POV characters of different backgrounds who all get notes from an unknown jester. The message that the jester sends comes to them in different ways, but is the same nonetheless: The ratings don't matter.

Between my first reaction at the synopsis (which was that this reminded me of a very specific episode of "Community") or the first few chapters where we are introduced to the characters and setup (which reminded me of "American Vandal" season 2), or just the fact that all our characters inhabit archetypes we're very familiar with (Breakfast Club is the most obvious example that comes to mind), it was hard for me to stop comparing this to other media. And that, I think, sums up my reading experience.

This story was completely fine, but also something I am very familiar with. Because of that I think that younger YA audiences will get a lot more out of this than someone like myself who has seen stories like this in almost every iteration imaginable.

It was an easy read that was never too challenging nor too boring, but with very few highs or lows. And even while it reads like something I've seen dozens of times, there was some diversity between the races, ethnicities, and sexualities of our main six, which is pretty much necessity in 2019.

Will I remember anything specific about it past this week? Probably not. But I wouldn't steer someone away from this book if they were interested in it either.

tw: disordered eating & food fixation, alcoholic & abusive parents, family member with cancer

[Alaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rated was a fun book to listen to. Don't know if I would survive in a world where you are rated until a certain point. Doesn't sound a lot of fun but I did enjoy the whole concept about how it wasn't real. Of course, when you are younger and all you know is the whole rating either helps or hurts you - you would believe it.

So, for people to start believing that it didn't matter or that it was fake started to make me more invested into the book. Of course, the kids are put through a sort of trial in this book. Towards the end, I didn't quite know who was behind it all but when I got to it, well I wasn't one hundred percent surprised either.

Definitely enjoyed this book and hope another one will come out.

[Myrna · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a character driven novel than a dystopian one. I think some of the characters were stereotyped like Javi but I cared for each one and hoped for a good outcome. The dystopian world was a little blurry though and I still have questions. I wonder if there will be a second book.

[i. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine a society in which everything you do has a positive or negative rating. Wait a moment!. We already live in that society, in fact, this very website is about liking and unliking.
But, what if all our future depended on these ratings? The novel shows a world where your whole life is determined by an unfair rating system. A school where pupils are constantly being watched and pushed to obtain higher ratings.
Most readers will probably relate to at least one character. They are teens whose lives are far from being perfect and who unwillingly embark on a quest to solve a riddle.
I liked the novel and truth to be told all the characters, but I wish it had been longer. In my opinion, it ends quickly and I found it lacking in world-building.
All in all, I recommend it to fans of YA dystopian novels.

www.theleisurediaries.blogspot.com

[Diabolica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really cute, light-hearted read.

I think it's cute that it tries to be a thriller, but the tension and suspense in the book are so underwhelming that until the last couple of chapters I forgot that there was a mystery going on. So, the mystery wasn't treated as the primary focus in the novel.

I think Grey had too many characters. I think the number of main characters in a book should be proportional to the number of books in a series. Nothing more, less is fine.

There were 6 main characters in the book. And Grey was trying to tie them all together.

While I praise her ambitiousness, it only resulted in an extremely long introduction. In fact, I think the whole book was an introduction. (I'm joking). But seriously, if you took the first thirty pages as an indication of whether or not you should continue the book, it's a little hard to really decide anything, because the first 30 pages only introduce every character.

So the relationships are somewhat developed (albeit a little crudely and a little confusingly because the timeline isn't the greatest) and the characters have all good a decent backstory.

Now the issue is that even if you start great, you still have to finish, and on that note, Grey did not deliver. There were several pieces to each of the character's stories that weren't filled in or didn't change. While I understand Grey did write this is somewhat of prequel fashion, the inadequate conclusion at the end was disappointing.

It wasn't a terrible book, but it wasn't terribly great either. I think I really enjoyed the dialogue and very lighthearted romance in the characters. I mean from the end of the 30 pages the ships were pretty clear, and it was fun to follow the slightly underbaked romance.

[Mercedes Roth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Recommend: If you like character driven stories
Review:
**I received an arc of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.**

Right, so I was really looking forward to this book because 1) I love Melissa Grey and 2) this book sounds amazing. When I got my greedy little hands on it I squealed and dived right in, but sadly, it did not live up to my expectations.

I will say, this book has a lot of things going for it for me. I like how it has multiple Points of View from characters who are very different from one another in personalities and backgrounds, which adds to the depth of the story as a whole. I like how the story has real world issues, from a character dealing with an eating disorder, another living in an abusive home, one struggling under pressure, another filling a parental role, and one just showing what it means to be on the fringes. The book also showcases different forms of relationships, from familial, romantic, and friendly. Plus, there are even LGBTQ characters in the main cast.
I honestly really enjoyed the characters separately, their struggles, and then I really enjoyed them together and how they fit.

That being said, the reason I didn't absolutely love this book is because of pacing and, well, there are a lot of parts I feel weren't really covered enough for me to understand, and thus care about. In the book, the beginning starts off as all beginnings with the framework of the plot and the characters, which is fine, I enjoyed that, but at about the middle things went for a loop. All of a sudden, there is a HUGE pacing issue. One minute I'm with this character figuring out this big thing and then BOOM! Some serious time has passed and I'm in a different place and time with a different character, and more than that, some how, at some point, all the other characters have figured the Thing out too? I mean, I'm not saying I needed a step-by-step breakdown of all of them figuring it out, but it definitely threw me when it went from none of them having a clue, to one pair figuring it out, then all of them just know.
Then, another scene and another big thing is happening. It made me feel like I was missing chunks of the story because I just wasn't understanding how time was passing in the way it was. Worse, because of these seeming missing pieces in time, it made the plot feel like it was missing rushed, which messed with the story big time. The beginning was a nice pace and set up for the story, but then it all started feeling rushed and thrown together.
Second, I didn't like how we're told about this Ratings thing that controls everyone and who invented it, but we're never given much of a backstory on it. We're never told why it came to being or why it was put into place around the country. I didn't understand the HOW for this system, so it made me unsure of the WHY it was in place or WHY I should care about it and how it affects the characters of the story. Further, I didn't understand completely how it worked. I mean, anyone could give or take a point from you, which sounds dangerous considering how these ratings affect lives. In fact, in the story we see this danger come into play, but that just further shows the folly of the system in the story. If I could take a point from someone just because, what's to stop me? Honestly, it sounds like some random person could spend their days just giving negatives for no reason other than boredom.

Really, the story isn't bad! I like the characters, the banter, and Melissa Grey's writing! I did enjoy reading this book and the twist at the end and I am looking forward to the sequel, but I also found some serious issues with it that really affected my loving this book.
I do think this would be a good, fun, easy read if you like character driven stories, so I do think you should give it a shot when it comes out!

[Jessica McKenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read an ARC, and enjoyed this one well enough. It sets up a sort of Breakfast Club-like atmosphere, delving into the lives of several disparate high school students and bringing them together for a common cause. The characters are fairly well-developed and relatable, and their interactions are engaging.

From the description, though, I expected this to be more like a Black Mirror episode. Particularly, it reminded me of Nosedive - a world where your social status is dependent on ratings, which anyone can give you at any time for any minor infraction or upholding of social norms. I wanted it to be a full dystopia, since that's what it seemed to be getting at from the start.

It never quite reaches that level, though. While the "ratings" are clearly a metaphor for unspoken social status and all of the things that create it (grades, employment, social pleasantries, etc.), they're really just that...A metaphor for how our society already works.

The thing about that Black Mirror episode that made it so chilling was how far it chose to push that concept, how it toyed with just how easily all of it could come crashing down on your head. It created a system of ratings that was so pervasive and inescapable that it made you feel that yes, that system is clearly, deeply flawed, and I can see our society ending up that way and very much would like to stop that from happening.

Rated just feels like what we already have. I'm not convinced that the rating system here is any more pervasive or detrimental than our current societal expectations. And maybe that's the point, but if so, I would expect to have more depth to the ways in which these expectations could be loosened, worked around, or brought down.

But there isn't really any of that. The focus is entirely, as it turns out, on just the several students' lives that we follow. There's not much substance here when it comes to actually breaking the system (unless you count cheating your way around it through hacking...which I'm not sure scales particularly well, or very closely fits the metaphor). So it becomes sort of just a typical high school story, with a bit of a tease toward social commentary.

I suppose it's fine as a middle-grade or YA, kind of a Black Mirror Lite. But it didn't go far enough for me.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well.

The idea of this book was great. I loved that it’s futuristic, but not really outlandish. Not quite science fiction.

But the writing. Oh my. First of all, I’m concerned about the chapped lip epidemic. It seems all the characters bite their lips, chew their lips, or for some other reason require Chap Stik. Also, there were times when the narration was so painfully redundant. “Javi looked down at Noah. Noah looked up at Javi.” They couldn’t just simply look at each other? Also, “It was different. Not bad different, but good different.”

Most annoying, though, was that the story seems to start off quickly, but then it slows to a snail’s pace. With six characters to keep track of (always switching from one to another in each chapter), the exposition takes practically the whole book... and the end is a complete cliffhanger. Not a satisfying ending at all.

I had high hopes, but the narrative didn’t do it for me.

On top of that, the cover doesn’t match the story! Nobody has negative ratings. Why would one kid have a blue 63 thumbs up while another has a red 63 thumbs down? That’s not how the book describes the ratings.

Notice for parents & teachers: no profanity or sex, but there is quite a bit of homosexual content.

[avery · Rating 2 out of 5]

i really enjoyed this book, but not because of the plot. the characters were the only enjoyable and interesting thing going for this book. they definitely are the found family trope and there’s so much representation throughout the characters. the plot was very boring and wasn’t even digested and talked about that much until the last 100 pages. the characters didn’t merge together as one group until around this time as well. all in all, the characters made this book, and the plot was bad.

[Briana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Source: ARC

Even though it’s been 11 years since the publication of the first Hunger Games book, avid YA readers might have mixed feelings about dystopian novels. Is it time for them to come back (like the vampire revival)? Or do dystopians still feel like “jumping on a fad?” Interestingly, Rated by Melissa Grey somewhat skirts the question. It’s a dystopian, presumably inspired by the Chinese social credit system that has been making headlines, but the focus in many ways is not actually on the world building; rather, the book shines through its characterization.

The book has six protagonists, six teenagers who attend the same elite prep school in a world where everyone has a rating. (If the book is jumping on a fad, perhaps it’s the multiple POV heist novel fad begun by Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows.) The point, of course, is that rating people is bad. It leads to anxiety over scoring the perfect rating. It leads to segregation in society, as some places like hospitals, grocery stores, etc. are only open to those with high ratings. It leads to corruption as people try to game the rating system. And, of course, the protagonists begin to realize there is something wrong with their world and start to come together to do something about it. That’s just how YA dystopian novels work.

Yet, even though technically the plot is focused on the dystopian element of the rating system and how to bring it down, that part of the novel always seemed to be in the background to me. This is partially because the world building is haphazard and under-developed. For instance, it’s impossible to say when the book takes place. One would guess decently into the future, based on the fact a lot of things have happened, from the implementation of the rating system itself to the banning of a number of classics, etc. That stuff takes time, particularly to be accepted as normal. However, one of the teen’s parents has videos of his own old high school games on VHS. That implies this book takes place about a decade into the future, max, which feels off to me.


The rating system itself is also not well-explained, a major whole in a book that takes the system as its premise. How the system actually works is revealed in bits and pieces, and I’m still not clear on it. What can you be rated for? Who can do the rating? (I thought only authority figures could rate for a long time, until it was revealed peer-to-peer rating is a thing, which is treated as “less than” a rating from a teacher, yet affects your rating in exactly the same way.) And if people you don’t know personally can rate you from seeing you online or watching you skate in a competition, why do the characters only experience rating drops of a point here and there? If 1000 people are watching you run an online video game, why would only two of them rate you? After reading the whole book, I still have a lot of questions.


To some extent, however, I found this did not really matter. The book’s true strength lies in the characters. Grey wonderfully balances her six POVs to create a varied cast of characters who each have their own private struggles and character arcs. Sure, the rating system is a problem, but I was much more invested in Noah’s family life and Hana’s figure skating career, and Bex’s quest to become valedictorian. The beauty of the book is in the individuals, not in the system they’re struggling against.

For the small dramas of each character and how they deal with them, I would recommend this book. I don’t think it excels as a dystopian because it didn’t really make me think. I didn’t get a sense this is a direction our world would actually go and, beyond the obvious, I didn’t get a sense of why readers should care. Sure, rating people is bad. I get that, but the book didn’t do anything interesting with that premise. I just liked the characters, and I think a lot of other readers will to, as long as they know to approach the book almost more as a contemporary about the ordinary struggles of high school students, rather than a dystopian novel.

****

Initial Thoughts: Interesting characterization. Less strong on the dystopian world building. It's intriguing, but there's nothing really memorable about the world building or the message, and this book is simply not going to have the impact of The Hunger Games, Uglies, Divergent, etc. Basically, it's a good read in the present, but I'm not going to remember that I read it a couple years from now. I also was not expecting this to end with the implication it might be a series.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rated by Melissa Grey is a solid YA dystopia, but it's never quite is as thrilling or as unsettling as it should have been. I think it's aiming for something along the lines of a thriller like Fahrenheit 451 even though it's much too light and cheesy to get there. If it weren't for the concept of the rating system, the book would definitely be a contemporary. I appreciate that it's very much a 20 minutes into the future sort of story. I don't see enough of that trope in YA.

[starfish · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this in grade 8 and did my pop culture analysis on it

TEN OUTTA TENNNN IT WAS SO GOOD

it was so crazy and i loved the switching perspectives too

and the plot was fire

[Nai · Rating 3 out of 5]

La premisa era buenísima, el modo en el que se desarrolló la historia estuvo bien pero no alcanzó el potencial que tenía la premisa de la misma, y el final fue.... raro. No era lo que esperaba y no sé si eso fue algo bueno, jajaja.
Sentí que tenía mucha construcción previa, mucha introducción, y poca trama :( Se siente como una primera parte de una saga... Muy introductorio. Pero bueno, me mantuvo enganchada en todo momento, le doy eso.

3.5/5

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

ARC was provided at BookCon by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I really didn’t expect to like this book, if we’re being honest. It was being pushed out at BookCon for free and I took it because there were a lot of them. However, I really ended up liking this book. The character dynamics were so well done and the plot was really engaging. To be quite honest, the ending was cliffhangery and I hope there’s more to come.

[Marochka · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10

[Jude · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't as captivating as I had hoped for and I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could. Rated will be enjoyed by lots of young people but it had a big focus on the characters whereas I was hoping for more of a focus on the rating system as that seems to be a path we are dangerously close to heading down.

[Vee_Bookish]

I need YA Dystopia to make a comeback.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

A future society in which everyone has a status rating that determines their place. A group of unlikely allies is brought together to fight the system.
Read if you like Dystopian.
Issues: LGBTQ, Anorexia, Parental Alcoholism

[Rivka]

I don’t know what to rate this yet
Give me a few hours

Also, yes I know it’s ironic

[Jooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing YA story that draws us an almost caricature of our modern society.

Everything is determined by "The Rating" and your rating is determined by your ancestry, grades, job, achievements, popularity... but in turn also determins your status and privileges in society. It's a vicious circle that is difficult to change. Once your rating drops below a certain point, it is very hard to ever recover from it and work yourself up to "the top".
When strange messages pop-up after a streak of vandalisme at Maplethorn High, it brings together 6 very different students with at first sight very different ratings, backgrounds, problems and goals in life. But can they put aside there differences and work out who/what is behind the messages, can they change the injustice done to one of them, how far are they willing to go to "solve the problem"....

This story started rather slow, but does show the kind of pressure our society puts on us, how most of us are guilty of judging a book by its cover, how we let shallow observations, like appearance, jobs, grades... influence our opinions of people before we even take the time to speak to them or get to know them or know what burdens or drives them... The rating system magnifies this fact and the consequences. So it was really interesting also the revealing of "who" was behind the whole ordeal. A clever plot that really impressed me.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

6 main characters is A LOT for a book, but it worked out okay. Bex and Chase, should not be together I don’t like their relationship, pretty sure they are only dating because they each lack what the other has. It was a good book, I liked Melody, she could have been a main character with how interesting she was, she reminds me of a friend I have. Hana was my least favorite, she really didn’t have as much of a resolution at the end and that annoyed me. I liked this book a lot, but it doesn’t need a sequel.

[layla · Rating 3 out of 5]

while the plot didn't focus on the actual rating system as much as i hoped it would, it was still a good character driven book. tamsin and hana were easily my fav pair, noah and javi would be first if their relationship didn't feel so rushed and javi didn't make me want to gauge my eyes out of embarrassment after saying "what the banana bread?". my fav part was the group finally coming together in the end and the book could've used a little more of that. the reveal gave Now You See Me vibes except it was slightly more annoying and expected since there weren't very many side characters.

[Jaime Arkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars - review to come

[Annie Zoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well written.

[victoria (herondale’s version) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars 🤌

[Carrie Irwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Good grades mean good ratings. Good ratings mean a good college. A good college means a good life.”

I had such high hopes for Rated, so when I got my hands on an advanced copy, I tore right into it. It started out really well...

The Concept

The concept did what all good dystopias should: made me stop and ponder the path we are on as a society and whether or not this is our inevitable future. As an educator, I found myself examining my own reactions to students. Am I rating them already? How is that affected them? Is giving a server a lower/higher tip at a restaurant just another form of a rating? In reality, we’re doing this every day, we just haven’t tacked a number onto it yet.

That being said, I can’t say it’s a terribly original concept when, without fail, every person I told about this book replied, “Oh, that’s like that one episode of Black Mirror.

The Characters

Melissa Grey does do an excellent job of painting the anxiety that is caused by the ratings system and uses it as a solid basis for character development.

“Wood’s eyes cut to them, picking the source of the sound out of the crowd with uncanny precision. Without missing a beat, he tapped on the face of the device on his wrist, once, twice, then swiped down on the screen. A subtle vibration against her wrist alerted Bex to a shift in her rating. She looked down at her own smartwatch.
The display lit up. The number had changed. A glowing 91 stared back at her, and her stomach seized at the sight of it. One minute into the semester and she’d already been docked a point because her best friends couldn’t keep her mouth shut.”

From the first moment we meet Bex, it is clear that ratings factor into her every decision. As we learn more about Bex, as with the other characters, we see that the ratings are only what’s driving her on the surface. Below that, Bex and Hana need approval from their parents. Noah and Javier are striving to take care of their siblings. Chase just wants to survive. And Tasmin… well…

Throughout the book, the characters played as realistic. They all had lives and problems that didn’t feel forced. I really appreciated how

The Writing

I really enjoyed Melissa Grey’s writing style. There was something about it that was pleasant in its stark matter-of-factness. Examples given:

“For forty dollars, Tasmin would shuffle her deck and deal the cards, reading the fortunes of anyone with enough money to pay. If she likes them, she’s make it interesting. If she didn’t like them, she’d make it really interesting.”

“He smiled at Noah, and Noah had stumbled over his words, and the sound of it had sent a frisson of pleasure through Javi’s body. It was one thing to know his smile was appreciated by thousands of people he would likely never meet, but it was a whole other thing entirely to know that it was appreciated by one person in particular.”

Ok, so what’s wrong with it?

Stories need this tiny detail called conflict. It is clear from the beginning of the book, and continues to be clear for a while, that the central conflict will be the group’s mission to find out who is responsible for the graffiti and the notes and, ultimately, dismantle the rating system. That’s just how YA dystopias work. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about mixing it up and not following what is expected. If this were an adult dystopia, I would expect a 1984 style ending where the system wins and everyone remains oppressed. That didn’t happen either. Instead, about ⅔ of the way through, there was a sudden and jolting change in the central conflict. The concern became not dismantling an oppressive system but taking down one overly powerful mean girl.

The initial and should-be-central conflict reappeared in the epilogue where the graffiti artist was revealed and basically asked, “So… should we do this thing?” Everyone agreed, and theoretically, sometime in the nearish future, they dismantled the system. It felt a bit like a seed left for a sequel that I have no desire to read.

Thoughts as a Teacher

Unfortunately, I can’t picture many of my students enjoying this book. The action moves very slowly, often rehashing the same events and timeline from six different perspectives. It’s a great read for character, but young readers that are driven to books simply for character development are few and far between.

Final Thoughts: Bitter Bean Juice

“Hana paid for her iced coffee and sipped at it. The taste made her cringe. Cream and sugar would have made her forget that coffee was, at its core, just bitter bean juice.”

“She sulked away to sip her sad bean juice at the last small table left unoccupied in the cafeteria.”

Thanks, Hana. Coffee really is just gross.

[Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept for a book. I enjoyed it overall, but it did take a long time to get to the main event, or height of the book if that makes sense.

[Syl-G6 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rated is a mystery novel that I will rate at four stars, mainly because the book shouldn’t have ended so abruptly. It should have been longer. The plot was excellent and just about to get exciting when the book suddenly ended.

The story is suited in a community of people with ratings, the better rating you have, the better life you will have. Your rating depended on how well you behaved and how well you studied. The rating system was that each person had smart –watches and on each smart watch there is a point system, anyone could change your rating except for students. By this fact, I think this book should be in the genre, Science-Fiction.
Six kids from Mapplethorpe High School, Bex, Noah, Tamsin, Hana, Chase and Javi each got a special note, with a joker on it, “On the day of the prophet false, one mustn’t dance the forbidden waltz, a copper found and a fortune told, all beside a box of gold.” With curiosity nagging them, they decided to decode the message and in turn help two friends. Once getting to their destination they realized that the ratings were unfair, so did Headmaster Wood agree with them and decided to have rebellions.
Bex has her schedule for the day color-coded, but she never has a white space-free time. Cramming in every single space for study, she has the highest rating than the other five kids. She didn’t get the card with a joker on it, which is the first move to the revolution. But Bex is an important member to the group, the ‘encyclopedia’.
Noah, the photographer who is invisible to everyone except for Javi, which leads a romantic relationship between them and he has a sick sister named Cece, which was the main reason that led them to the rebellion of the ratings, to help her.
Tamsin is ‘the witch’ who can tell the future and read your mind. But, she skips class and gets in trouble, constantly. She keeps a very low-key, but is considerate to her friends. When her rating was at stake her friends piece together a plan to let her stay in the rating community to help with the riddle.
Hana is a figure skater, dieting frequently to do a special move to impress her parents. She suddenly gains a new understanding about the world around her when Tamsin asks, “Is it really worth dying for?” Hana then started to rebel because she feels unfair that every wrong move she makes she will have to go down one point and also feel like her parents are forcing her.
Chase is an excellent pitcher for baseball and is popular in school. Though he is with ruthless kids, and has a rough life at home. Chase is kind-hearted, he gets people’s attention.
Javi is a natural gamer and technology guy. He is excellent as observing and understanding people and things. He notices many main clues first and catches on with the riot quickly.
Once they pieced together all the clues and deciphered the riddle, Bex, Noah and the others go to the old abandoned music ware house, where the clues has led them, and Headmaster Wood, the Headmaster who was super strict to them and almost expelled Tamsin, explained the revolution to them.
I was so disappointed when I flipped to the last page and found a blank page after. Won’t someone expects more action from the blurb? “-But when an act of vandalism sullies the front doors if the school it sets off a chain reaction they will shake the lives of six special students….each of them will be forced to face the unfair reality of the ratings- and decide whether they’re willing to fight for a better future”. Isn’t it actiony? But the reality is that there was a hook, had some suspense, came to the changing point/ main part of the story….. And BOOM! The story line goes straight down into a chasm with the epilogue hitting me right in the face. It’s almost like leaving the reader at a dead end. I wish the author; Melissa Grey would have added a second book with the war and tactics of the revolution the six are going to do and each reactions. Anyway, it is gnawing at me, the thought of what is going to happen next.
Overall, this book has complex and vivid characters, varying with different backgrounds and personalities. I also liked the mystery and suspense. The author was also creative for the science fiction theme to it and the ratings added on. Making it actually making sense and easy to grasp.

[Emma Garner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a tough one to start. The beginning felt slow and drawn out, but it got increasingly better! Once I got through the backstories it was a super-fast read. The story covered so many different topics that were incredibly written. It felt like the breakfast club in a new age setting discussing the many issues we face in today's society. I would recommend this book to all of my friends!

[Christine Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Title: Rated
Author: Melissa Grey
Pages: 319
Genre: LGBTQ, Romance, Mystery
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
This is an Advanced Readers Copy. That means that this is not the final version of the book. Therefore, facts and quotes are subject to change in the published book.
This is like 15% mystery, 50% romance, and the rest is about highschoolers living in this new world centered on ratings. We follow six individual students who live in this new world. From the highest score to the lowest in the school, all six students cover a range of kids. Each pair into a couple which is quite obvious but it is one straight, one gay, and one lesbian, which is great to see!
Oh No's
How they all come together and solve the mystery in the end did not make sense. Hana and Tamsin didn't figure it out all but just showed up there. We got to see how one group figured it out and the other two groups just appear there. I feel this whole story needed to be fleshed out a lot more.
Loved that there are six different perspectives. Very different but I wish they weren't all info-dumped in the beginning then brought together so suddenly in the end. They should have been integrated more slowly so it wouldn't be so hard for people to learn who they are. I wanted more from all of these people. If there is a sequel, I might bump this rating up to a five.
Yay's
LGBTQ Love the couples, straight, gay, lesbian, all my babies! Hana and Tamsin were definitely my favorites because I feel they were the most fleshed out. Chase and Elizabeth were a hard second with Noah and Javi taking up the finish. These are great characters who meld well together and I hope you all enjoy them as much as I did!
You guys know how I am when it comes to translations being included in books. Well, here is a perfect example of what you can do!
"But we're your parents," her mother said in Japanese. She spoke Japanese when she thought Hana was being recalcitrant or rebellious." - ARC
You don't have to use the language every time. Although you can if you want to, I know I will. But if I do, I will include a translation so that all can understand. I also want to aim/push for publishing in multiple languages.
Finally,
This is a great mystery/romance for young adults. I wish this book was more fleshed out and longer but I'm hoping for a sequel. I definitely suggest picking this book up!
My similar recommendation for this novel would be Girls of paper and fire by Natasha Ngan. Fighting the system and coming together. Oh and lesbians.
Favorite Quote
"Tamsin: You're a jock in sequins.
Chase: I think I'd look good in sequins. Maybe we should make it a thing."
-ARC
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-PM