Blog Tour: Anomaly


Welcome to my stop on the Anomaly blog tour hosted by YA Bound Book Tours.
Click HERE to see the full blog tour schedule!



Anomaly
Release Date: 07/09/13
Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Summary from Goodreads:
Thalli has fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds left to live. The toxic gas that will complete her annihilation is invading her bloodstream. But she is not afraid.

Thalli is different than others in The State. She feels things. She asks questions. And in the State, this is not tolerated. The Ten scientists who survived the nuclear war that destroyed the world above believe that emotion was at the core of what went wrong—and they have genetically removed it from the citizens they have since created. Thalli has kept her malformation secret from those who have monitored her for most of her life, but when she receives an ancient piece of music to record as her community’s assigned musician, she can no longer keep her emotions secreted away.

Seen as a threat to the harmony of her Pod, Thalli is taken to the Scientists for immediate annihilation. But before that can happen, Berk—her former Pod mate who is being groomed as a Scientist—steps in and persuades the Scientists to keep Thalli alive as a test subject.

The more time she spends in the Scientist’s Pod, the clearer it becomes that things are not as simple as she was programmed to believe. She hears stories of a Designer—stories that fill her mind with more questions: Who can she trust? What is this emotion called love? And what if she isn’t just an anomaly, but part of a greater design?


Available from:

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What I thought:
When I signed up for this tour I didn't realize that this was in the Christian Fiction genre. I thought it was just going to be a YA Dystopian. It turned out to be both, so it's a good thing I like Christian Fiction. It's the first time I have read this type of book and it was an interesting mix.

The whole premise was also different. The world has basically faced an apocalypse, which is nothing new, but in this story a community survives under ground in a scientific living space and pods that were set up for just such a scenario. Then the following generations are engineered to not feel things or think specific things. Those that somehow still retain these characteristic, even though engineered not to, are called anomalies. Thalli is just such an anomaly. Because of this she has feelings she shouldn't, developing friendships when she shouldn't, and possibly something more with one young scientist. There are other things driving the plot, such as the agenda and issues among the scientists and a new threat to their survival.

I actually really liked Thalli, although I think she took too many risks by not hiding her feelings enough. On the other hand, I think that would be difficult to do every single day for all of her seventeen years. I also liked Berk, who is very smart, kind, and loyal. The other characters were also interesting. I was surprised that we only see mainly two scientists through the whole book, one more than the other. However, this made a little more sense at the end.

The religious content did seem a little unrealistic and I think someone who doesn't normally read Christian Fiction or who isn't Christian may be turned off by this, so I would recommend it to those who enjoy this genre. There really aren't that many Christian Fiction books that aren't Historical or Contemporary Fiction, so I'm glad that this author decided to write a dystopian. I think there is definitely a market for it in Christian YA.

Overall, it was an interesting read, one I ended up liking. I am actually quite curious to find out what happens in the second book, which comes out next year.
 
Content: Clean
Source: Copy received from tour host. This did not affect the opinions shared in my review in any way.

 

About the Author

Krista McGee’s passion to see teens excited about serving God is a driving force behind her novels. Ever since college when she spent a summer working at a youth camp, McGee knew she wanted to invest in teenagers. Since then she’s been involved in a variety of youth ministries and currently teaches at a Christian school in Tampa, FL.

McGee broke into the writing world during her time in Spain. A friend encouraged her to submit an article to a Christian girls’ magazine, and it got published. Once her family moved back to Tampa, she got the idea for her first novel, First Date, a modern take of the story of Esther. Her subsequent books, Starring Me and Right Where I Belong, are based on Rebekah and Ruth.

When Krista McGee isn’t living in fictional worlds of her own creation, she spends her days as a wife, mom, teacher and coffee snob.
 

You can find Krista here:

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***GIVEAWAY***

5 print copies of Anomaly, US only.

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