My Thoughts: The Haven by Carol Lynch Williams (DNF)

For the teens at The Haven, the outside world, just beyond the towering stone wall that surrounds the premises, is a dangerous unknown. It has always been this way, ever since the hospital was established in the year 2020. But The Haven is more than just a hospital; it is their home. It is all they know. Everything is strictly monitored: education, exercise, food, and rest. The rules must be followed to keep the children healthy, to help control the Disease that has cast them as Terminals, the Disease that claims limbs and lungs—and memories.

But Shiloh is different; she remembers everything. Gideon is different, too. He dreams of a cure, of rebellion against the status quo. What if everything they’ve been told is a lie? What if The Haven is not the safe place it claims to be? And what will happen if Shiloh starts asking dangerous questions?

ARC received from publisher. 

Picture this...

You're snuggling down, getting cozy, ready to start reading that new book that you are really excited about and are hoping for a really great experience. Then you start it and it doesn't start out the way that you had anticipated. But you keep going, thinking hoping that it will get better. But it doesn't, and as you go it gets bad, really bad. This is what happened to me as I read The Haven by Carol Lynch Williams. I was excited to read this one. It sounded interesting and I was eager to step out of my comfort zone with The Haven. But I just did not enjoy this one at all.

The next bit is going to be a bit spoiler-y so beware.

Now in all fairness I only got sixty pages into this one before I gave up. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't stand the protagonist- Shiloh, I thought she as incredibly annoying. She had no spunk, she was scared and I get that, but I couldn't get passed it. She was to cautious and unwilling to take chances. I found that I need more in my main characters. They need to be independent and have a unique thought. In the pages that I read, I did not get this from Shiloh.

What really irritated me about The Haven, was the fact that it felt like a plot that had been done before. The whole thing was very much like the movie The Island (starring Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor), or the book Never Let Me go by Kazuo Ishiguro. For me, this novel did not feature an original idea- which would have been fine had it not been so painfully obvious. I knew what was happening ten pages in.

In the end I chose not to finish The Haven. I found that I had no desire to read it, and that meant that I didn't read at all. It took me a full week to read the first sixty pages and it totally put me in a slump.

I don't think that The Haven is a bad book, it just wasn't for me. I think it would be a great read for young readers, ages 10-12. I am not sure if that is the targeted audience, however, I think that's who should read it.

~Happy Reading Everyone!