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Fairyloot Adult #8: Poster Girl

Originally, Fairyloot’s focus was on Young-Adult Fantasy books, but that changed in 2022 with the launch of their Adult Fantasy Book-Only subscription. As a subscriber to their regular YA subscription, I was given priority to sign up for this new service, and as a book and fantasy enthusiast, I couldn’t resist.

At the beginning of November I received the book for the month of October. The theme of the month was Dystopia, so it was quite obvious that it would be a Science Fiction book this time, the very first after the previous 7 fantasy books.

And it wasn’t just any Sci-Fi Dystopia book, but one by the well-known author of the Divergent series, Veronica Roth, with her new adult book, Poster Girl.

For the cover of the Fairyloot edition, they again stayed pretty true to the standard UK cover, but played around with the colours. Personally, I think the illustration comes into its own much better with the blue edition of Fairyloot than the red edition, so I’m definitely a fan!

Underneath the cover we find a beautiful blue hardcover with a quote and illustration in silver-blue foiling, which is very appropriate for the book.
The edges were painted digitally, also in blue, with a kind of graph paper motif and additional illustration, again very appropriate for the book.
The flyleaves, identical at the front and back, also show an appropriate illustration, unique to the fairyloot edition.
Finally, the book also has a digital signature of the author.

Once again a very neat and well thought out edition. But what about the content?
I’m really trying my best to read these new additions to my bookcase in a timely manner and actually hope to catch up soon! In February I came one step closer to this by finishing this book, just under three months after I put it on my bookcase.

Veronica Roth – Poster Girl ★★★★

Genre: Science Fiction (Dystopia)

A fallen regime. A missing child. A chance at freedom.

WHAT’S RIGHT IS RIGHT.
Sonya Kantor knows this slogan – she lived by it for most of her life. For decades, everyone in the Seattle-Portland megalopolis lived under it, as well as constant surveillance in the form of the Insight, an ocular implant that tracked every word and every action, rewarding or punishing by a rigid moral code set forth by the Delegation.

Then there was a revolution. The Delegation fell. Its most valuable members were locked in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city. And everyone else, now free from the Insight’s monitoring, went on with their lives.

Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has been imprisoned for ten years when an old enemy comes to her with a deal: find a missing girl who was stolen from her parents by the old regime, and earn her freedom. The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, crooked post-Delegation world where she finds herself digging deeper into the past – and her family’s dark secrets – than she ever wanted to.

This book surprised me. I wasn’t really excited about picking this up and the only reason I read it when I did, is because I got it in my Fiaryloot Adult subscription and neurotically-me wants to read these books in the order that I get them, lol.
But ooh, I’m so glad that I pushed myself to read this, because I really like this.

This book tells the story of the aftermath after the fall of a dystopian regime, but mainly through the eyes of one person who grew up in this regime and loved it, even flourished in it.
It’s a very subdued and atmospheric read. The desolate feeling that is so typical for a dystopian novel is present every step of the way.

The story is slow and flows along at a leisurely pace throughout the book.
This isn’t some grand revolutionary epic about the fight to overrun the government, but the journey of a single woman getting to terms with what she did under that regime and is now slowly being given the elements to understand how her worldview was being manipulated and skewed.

I really liked reading from this side of the story. It was unique and definitely gives you food for thought about the growing role of surveillance on society.