22. Clean Slate

The book:  Slated (Slated #1)
The author:  Teri Terry
The rating:  4.5 stars

Lucy isn't okay; she is as good as dead.  She doesn't exist anymore.  She's been Slated.

There are a lot of works which have been described as "riveting psychological thrillers" and are anything but.  Slated, on the other hand, is well-deserving of the epithet.  The suspense Terry creates from the very first page is palpable and unnerving, a combination of the Chasing Yesterday series by Robin Wasserman, the Dollhouse tv-show, and The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (before the latter lost all suspense and became just another trite paranormal romance).  This suspense comes in part from Terry's voice and the way in which she describes the world, but also from the characters.  Again, unnerving is the best descriptor for many of the chilling cast, their smiles and murky motivations leaving the reader, like protagonist Kyla, unsure of who to trust.  Characters introduced in a negative light gradually shift to be perceived as friends; characters that initially appear allied to Kyla take on darker meanings.  There's no certainties on which to cling, nobody who is incontestably on Kyla's side, not even Kyla herself, devoid of her memories and her past, but with instincts and talents that remain as vestiges of the girl she must have been before.

Another aspect which contributes to the suspense is Terry's worldbuilding, something with which I seem to be fixated as of late, but I still attest that it is extremely significant to a good futuristic story.  Worldbuilding is well-integrated into Slated, a trait that stands out when info-dumps seem to be the norm in YA dystopian fiction.  Terry has mastered the 'show not tell' method of building her world, and accomplishes this feat without ever causing the reader to feel utterly confused and lost, unable to follow the story due to thick jargon or oblique historical references.  Furthermore, this future-UK is not farfetched or completely unbelievable.  There is no outrageous future-tech or unlikely historic events, just a restrained inclusion of a few important developments:  peaceful student protests that began to escalate; right versus left political tension that resulted in society toeing centre; new medical treatments coming out of autism research.  Heck, the way Kyla and Ben interact with their Levos is reminiscent of diabetics checking their blood sugar.  Unlike stories involving Space Amish, I can clearly imagine how society went from life as we know it today to Slated's future world; Terry uses past events to mould an undeniably plausible future, and this plausibility further increases the atmosphere of tension and suspense.

Aside from the suspense, another of Slated's virtues is the novel's intriguing premise.  Growing up, there were three types of novels that really enthralled me:  paranormal tales about witches or fae, vampires or psychics; stories about futuristic societies where danger lurked behind an idyllic surface; and finally, exciting thrillers about lost memories, amnesia, and forgotten identities.  As a kid, I could find amazing books in all three of my favourite genres if I looked, but after Twilight hit it big, paranormal stories exploded.  Nowadays, hundreds of paranormal romance clones flood the market, and I avoid them like the plague; while there's likely still ones out there as good as those I'd always loved, more often than not I'll just end up disappointed by a shoddy love triangle when I pick up an urban fantasy or paranormal adventure.  The second of my favourites also rose to prominence in the form of the dystopian genre, fueled by The Hunger Games and others like it.  Dystopia is also beginning to suffer from an oversaturation of poor copycat novels, trying to cash in on the successful trend, but evidently I haven't given up hope on that one yet.  While this book is also a dystopia, the final genre fits Slated like a glove:  stories that explore identity and memory.  Unlike the previous two types, this kind of novel has yet to rise in popularity, and so while there are a number of books that fall into the category, it enjoys a much greater sense of originality.  There are new ideas to explore here, and Slated explores them with insight and finesse.  If all our memories are taken from us, is the person we were "as good as dead?"  Are our memories all that make us who we are?

However, I did have a few quibbles with the novel that prevent me from awarding it the elusive five stars.  For one, I found that Kyla occasionally slipped into the role of a Mary Sue superstar:  she's an exceptional, one-of-a-kind artist; she's the fastest runner in the school, faster than all the other girls and also the top male athlete, even though she joined cross country on a whim and had been in a hospital for nine months or more; she's a bit of a brainiac, finding the school entry test a breeze and able to slide immediately into regular classes.  Most of the time, it's not an overwhelming aura of Mary Sue, and perhaps Kyla's special talents may be better explained in the sequel after her history is more greatly uncovered, but nonetheless, just how "special" she was left a slightly tinny taste in my mouth after an otherwise exquisite meal.

The only other problem I had was the ending, establishing the hook that will lead into the second novel in the series, Fractured.  After an original, thought-provoking and well-paced plot, the last chapter seemed to be an info-dump, clumsily setting up what may be the type of undesirable vanilla rebel plot I have mentioned in previous reviews.  This wrong-note ending caused the tinny taste to remain even after the delicious flavours of the novel had begun to recede, something which has me slightly worried for what Fractured has in store.  However, one bad chapter doesn't necessarily spoil the whole bunch; a bit of trepidation won't temper my need to find out what happens to Kyla next, and Fractured still sits square on top of my reading list.