Inside Out (Insider, #1) in Nothing But Reading Challenges

Mar 04, 2010 Bonnie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, apocalypse-dystopia, 2010-books

Snyder is kind of hit or miss for me. I liked Poison Study (though not as much as everyone else seems to) but thought Storm Glass was a waste of my time. Also, I’m sick of dystopia generally, but I’ve found I can still enjoy the occasional one (Life as We Knew It being the latest example).

So what I’m saying here is that I didn’t know what to expect from this book. Well, it’s aces. Nicely done, Snyder! Maybe you should leave off fantasy and stick with sci fi.

Trella is more than a bit antisocial. Snyder is kind of hit or miss for me. I liked Poison Study (though not as much as everyone else seems to) but thought Storm Glass was a waste of my time. Also, I’m sick of dystopia generally, but I’ve found I can still enjoy the occasional one (Life as We Knew It being the latest example).

So what I’m saying here is that I didn’t know what to expect from this book. Well, it’s aces. Nicely done, Snyder! Maybe you should leave off fantasy and stick with sci fi.

Trella is more than a bit antisocial. She’s one of many, and she hates it. The only person she likes is Cogon, who everyone likes. She prefers spending time in the ducts that weave through Inside than with her fellow scrubs (hence her title, Queen of the Pipes). I like Trella a lot. She is prickly without being bitchy (a line that many authors have a difficult time manoeuvring). It helps that she has a sense of humor and that she is willing to go to great lengths for Cogon—and that she thaws fairly quickly. Plus, people keep calling her out on not caring about anyone besides herself and Cogon.

I was super glad when Riley, an Upper who stumbles upon Trella and becomes her ally and friend, showed up. Partly because he wasn’t Cogon. Don’t get me wrong, Cog is great and all, but he is so damn naïve and gentle for living in such a crap place. I like my romantic interests with a little more bite. Riley is funny and brave and nice—plus, the whole Sheepy thing is pretty damn adorable (it involves a stuffed animal sheep and…well…read it yourself. It’s cute).

The world Inside is, yes, a dystopia, with the labouring class below, the upper class above and everyone controlled by a sadistic police force, the Pop Cops. But despite the bad stuff going on Inside, it wasn’t grindingly depressing like dystopia can be. Maybe because the action moves along pretty quickly. You’re introduced to Trella and life among the scrubs and then right quick get caught up with the quest for Gateway (the semi-mythical passage to Outside) and trying to avoid the Pop Cops and maybe starting a revolution in the process.

I will also say there’s a twist that I did NOT SEE COMING. Maybe if I had been thinking about it harder? But maybe not. It makes total sense, too, so mad props to Snyder for surprising me. I appreciate not being able to predict everything.

This does get docked a star, though, for the semi-stilted dialogue (which I only noticed in the last half) and the sad incompetence of the Pop Cops. When you have an absolutely closed environment and total control, you think you’d be able to capture ONE GIRL who you KNOW basically lives in the pipes. Trella kept dropping by Cog in jail!! If the Pop Cops had half a brain, they would trap the ducts leading into Cog’s jail cell. They could’ve caught Trella at least twice this way. I can handwave this away by saying that the Pop Cops had gotten complacent and unimaginative through being dominant and underestimating everyone else, but really I think it’s because otherwise Trella and her allies would’ve gotten caught and recycled really quickly, and then the book would’ve gone to unhappy places. ...more

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Oct 22, 2010 Jessica B rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, young-adult, kindle, maria-v-snyder, 2011

I absolutely loved the Study series by Maria V Snyder so I definitely wanted to check out some of her other books. This book is completely different from anything else I have read. It is a mix of dystopian and science fiction. At first I was a little confused as to everything that was happening in Inside. But eventually everything seemed to come together.

Trella is a loner scrub who works cleaning the vents on the Inside. She spends most of her time in the vents and has earned the name Queen of ...more

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