‘The Unadjusteds,’ by Marisa Noelle: Book Review

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Star Rating: ★★★✰✰

Plot:

In a futuristic America, 80% of the population has chosen to alter their DNA with nanites. Originally made to treat illnesses and birth defects, the nanites are now used superficially to give people fairy wings, horns, strength, speed and anything else you can think to want.

But Silver Melody, the daughter of the scientists who originally created the nanites, doesn’t want to become an altered. So when President Bear declares that the entire population must become altered, she joins her best friend Matt and a group of rebels in hiding. 

With Silver’s parents arrested by President Bear for not wanting to create any more nanites and a price on Silver’s head, she and the others in hiding (both unadjusted and adjusted) must band together to defeat Bear and his almost immortal army of bulks and hellhounds, and save humanity in the process. 

I love a book that gets straight into it …

… and The Unadjusteds does just that. Within the first scene, we see the devastating effects that taking a nanite can have when a boy dies in Silver’s arms after taking a bulk nanite. 

Foaming at the mouth with blood dripping from his nose, we’re introduced to the very reason that Silver refuses to become an altered: the nanites don’t agree with everyone’s system and you never know if it will agree with you until it’s too late. She lost her friend Diane that way and doesn’t see the point in taking the risk for fairy wings or extra speed.

So from the first page of this book, you’re hooked and ready to find out more.

Getting straight to the point also means there’s no faffing about with world-building

One thing I’m always wary of with dystopian books is that the new world order has to be set up, and sometimes this takes ages and involves description, description, and guess what, more description.

But The Unadjusteds manages to bypass that without compromising on the world itself. We’re introduced bit by bit to how this future works do it doesn’t feel like we’re being bombarded with information, yet we still understand exactly what’s going on. Noelle manages this really well and it made the book so much easier to read. 

The characters are not only believeable, they’re relateable

I’ve said it before that I don’t read a lot of YA fiction, and part of it is because I’m 30 years old and I don’t feel like reading about a bunch of teenagers. But (and I’ve said this before as well), when I do pick up a YA book I’m always pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy it and think I should read more. 

The Unadjusteds was sort of like this for me, and I think the characters had a lot to do with why I liked this book. They were so much more relatable than I, a 30-year-old woman, thought teenagers could possibly be. 

Firstly, I felt for Silver with her preconceptions about altereds being superficial and awful (my preconceptions being that YA is for teenagers), but once she actually spends time with them and finds out their reasons for taking the nanites her opinion changes (like mine when I actually read a YA book).

These reasons were relatable on so many levels, whether it’s peer pressure or health reasons. Everyone has something they wish they could change about themselves, and if they got the chance they would take it, fuck the consequences. 

I did find myself rolling my eyes a bit at the relationship between Silver and Erica. I just found it so juvenile and wanted to scream ‘the world is crumbling around you, get over your petty jealousies!’  

But then I remembered the very reason I was wary of YA, and it’s because they’re teenagers. Of course they’re going to be a bit juvenile and let jealousy creep in, what teenager wouldn’t? So once I got that into my head I actually admired Noelle for that aspect of their characters because it made it all the more realistic. 

There’s one thing that irked me a little …

… and I don’t want to say too much about it because I don’t want to spoil anything. But something happens at the end that I wasn’t happy about for two reasons.

Firstly, I thought it was a little bit convenient on Silver’s behalf (that sounds awful when you know what it is,  but shut up, this is my blog so my opinion!). It kind of cuts out a fair bit of awkwardness that would have happened for Silver going forward, so I just thought it was a little bit too easy.

Secondly, I felt like it all happened too fast and wasn’t given the gravitas that I think it deserved. Now, this could be because it was near the end of the book and I was just reading quickly to find out how it all ended. But I still felt like it could have been given more focus and more drama.

But other than that I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to any YA lovers out there (or YA haters, you never know, it might convert you). The ending also leaves it open for a sequel so I’m looking forward to finding out how Silver’s story continues.

The Unadjusteds is available from Write Plan on 1st November 2019

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If you liked The Unadjusted, you might also like:

Red Rising by Pierce Brown, or
Hannah Green and her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence, by Michael Marshall Smith