Review: Branded

Title: Branded
Author: Abi Ketner & 
Publisher: Month9Books
Published: June 25th, 2014
Series: Sinners
How I Served It: e-book
How I Got It: Purchased, amazon

Summary:
"Fifty years ago The Commander came into power and murdered all who opposed him. In his warped mind, the seven deadly sins were the downfall of society. 

To punish the guilty, he created the Hole, a place where sinners are branded according to their sins. Sinners are forced to live a less than human existence in deplorable conditions, under the watchful eye of guards who are ready to kill anyone who steps out of line.

Now, LUST wraps around my neck like thick, blue fingers, threatening to choke the life out of me. I’ve been accused of a crime I didn’t commit, and the Hole is my new home. 

Constant darkness. 

Brutal and savage violence. 

Excruciating pain. 

Every day is a fight for survival. 

But I won’t let them win. I will not die in the Hole. 

I am more than my brand. I’m a fighter. My name is Lexi Hamilton, and this is my story." ---Goodreads

Review:
Once again I find myself saying that I really, really wanted to like this book.  The premise just sounded... different?  I mean, dystopian is so in right now that it's hard to find anything truly original, but the idea of people being branded with their sins and condemned to live as inferiors... it just sounded like something vaguely fresh.  And the whole 'falling for the one person you're not allowed to love' thing is the basis of nearly all of my favorite books. So, when I used that stupid '1-Click Buy' button on amazon to purchase Branded, I had pretty high hopes.  I so wanted to fall in love with this story.  I didn't expect it to be a Pulitzer Prize worthy work of life-changing fiction.  I didn't want it to be, I just wanted an escapist story filled with angst and romance and all of the ya tropes we all hate to love!


Branded isn't a big name book of 2014 as far as I know, so for those of you unfamiliar with it, the novel follows Lexi Hamilton who has been wrongfully condemned as a sinner.  She's branded with 'Lust' and sentenced to the Hole (where they keep all of the sinners) and stuck with Cole, a young guard who's only job is to keep her alive.  Sinners and guards are forbidden to love.  What Lexi learns through her troubles in the Hole (with her pretty face and suggestive brand she quickly becomes the target of basically every man, guard and Sinner alike) is that nothing is quite as it seems and her family has had much more to do with the Hole than she ever imagined.

I'd say that the first half, maybe even the first two thirds of the novel were solid.  Not great mind, but the kind of book that you were willing to keep reading to see what happened.  It wasn't until (spoiler) Lexi and Cole start to admit their feelings that things devolved.  Up until that point the book was shaky.  It just wasn't the type of writing style that I enjoyed... maybe a little too juvenile or clunky, but outside of that the characters at least made sense.  Lexi behaved in a  manner that one would expect a teenaged girl in these situations to react.  It wasn't a Katnis moment where you really supported the main character, but more like the uncomfortable moment where you have to admit that, if you were thrown into this type of dilemma you too would probably cry and pee yourself.  I'm not really a big fan of that... I've always preferred the super-powered heroines who, while human, are able to bury their fear and power through.  I wonder what that says about me

Anyway, after the first half/two-thirds, the book loses its footing.  Lexi stops behaving like a real teenaged girl.  Cole stops doing things that make logical sense for a young man.  Lexi's (spoilers here on out) brother is written in a way that makes him appear deranged but none of the other characters notice or care.  In fact, Lexi follows her brother blindly, abandons her pseudo-boyfriend for what seems to be certain death, and develops Mary-Sue style fighting action.  Don't get me wrong, the book would not have been better if Lexi had stayed weak and insignificant but her overnight transformation into a warrior just doesn't make sense.  In books like Divergent and the Delirium series the characters have to work to be awesome at fighting.  Lexi doesn't seem to.  It comes too naturally and kind of undermines her back-story in which she was incapable of fighting back.

Lexi's back-story is another thing that kind of irked me.  Told through flashbacks, Lexi's stepfather is painted as a completely irrationally terrible man.  The big reveal that he is the Commander, while predictable, does not answer my big question of why.  Why is he such a cruel individual?  Is he mentally ill as Cole vaguely implies a one point?  In my opinion you cannot create a convincing villain without rationalizing how the villain became evil.  It's not a hard fix, I'm pretty much open to any explanation, including the idea that evil is born not made, but I don't like it when I'm just supposed to accept a villain as evil without explanation.  

I think that my issue with the stepfather serves as a summary of my issue with the entire novel.  In addition to a  writing style that I simply didn't fancy, the plot just didn't explain itself.  Lexi, Cole and all of the other characters acted in ways that just didn't make sense.  Maybe if some explanation had been given as to why they forgave each other so easily and didn't ask the questions that mattered... but there isn't any explanation given and so it just seems like the author forgot realism in her attempts to make her story more exciting and surprising.

The Final Noodle: One Spoon Up
I hate that I didn't like this book.  Seriously, I thought that the premise had so much potential and sounded like something that I could really love.  I do think that the writers are going to go places as they have great ideas... I just think that maybe they need better editors or maybe to split up and write alone.  It is possible that the shared writing is what made the story feel so clunky and split.