Erin's Reviews > Hope's Daughter

This was a really unique and different spin on the sci-fi dystopian. It was a bit sluggish on the get-go, but once the story picked up I really enjoyed it. The space station concept wasn't necessarily original, but the meaning behind it and the environment that the people lived in was definitely something new.

Cassie lives on Space Staton Hope, where everything is cookie-cutter identical throughout. The people live in zones, in apartments that all look the same, where everyone takes the same vitamins, and every family has just one child. Families live together until the children grow up and fall in love, at which point they move on and 'elope' to the Married Quarter, while the parents move to the Retirement Quarter. Cassie doesn't think to question any of this until a shy classmate of hers named Balik suddenly decides to open up to her on their last day of studies. He plants a seed of doubt in her mind about what they could be missing in the sheltered, monitored life on the space station. As they spend more time together, Balik opens Cassie's eyes to some questionable discoveries he's made, while Cassie herself tries to come to grips with her strange ability to hear people's thoughts. Could there be something behind the secrets and lies, and can Cassie use her ability to learn more about the space station?....

I wasn't sure what to think of Cassie at first. Much of the first chapters were crammed full of her thoughts, primarily, and it was a lot of her observations and self-doubt. She was confused about what to do for her placement, feeling like she wasn't going to fit in anywhere. Her parents were acting oddly, which didn't help her situation. I was relieved when the placements had her working with Balik, because I loved his character. I was drawn to him right away, I liked his deep thoughts and curiosity with what was going on around them. Cassie was suddenly much more interesting when they got to interact and find out what they meant to each other. I loved the romance between them, it was realistically slow to develop but kept progressing despite all of the uncertainty around them.

As the story developed and Balik revealed how much he had discovered about their 'world', I couldn't wait to figure out what was behind all the monitoring and odd behavior. I guessed part of what was behind it pretty early on, but I definitely wasn't expecting the full reveal. It was a disturbing but original plot twist, and I loved it! The ending was great, I love the idea that there's hope there but Cassie now has some serious hurdles to get through in her future. I'm excited to see what happens next!!