Review of Ilima Todd's Remake
Release Date: October 14th, 2014
Synopsis as found on Amazon.com:
A World Where Freedom Isn't a Choice
Nine is the ninth female born in her batch of ten females and ten males. By design, her life in Freedom Province is without complications or consequences. However, such freedom comes with a price. the Prime Maker is determined to keep that price a secret from the new batches of citizens that are born, nurtured, and raised androgynously.
But Nine isn't like every other batcher. She harbors indecision and worries about her upcoming Remake Day - her seventeenth birthday, the age when batchers fly to the Remake facility and have the freedom to choose who and what they'll be.
When Nine discovers the truth about life outside of Freedom Province, including the secret plan of the Prime Maker, she is pulled between two worlds and two lives. Her decisions will test her courage, her heart, and her beliefs. Who can she trust? Who does she love? And most importantly, who will she decide to be?
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Excerpt from Remake:
You are a prisoner.
They shackle your wrists with chains of fear.
They cut you to your knees with blades of oppression.
The noose they bind around your throat silences your voice. And you hang lifeless. Useless.
Yet you boast religion, peace, and freedom.
Freedom?
You are not free.
You are no more free than their own citizens. Those people think they are equal - choosing their names, their bodies, their consequence-free lives.
But they are bound just as you are.
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I was really thrown off by how incredible I found this book. Had I known it was so good, I would have picked it up months ago; Another great dystopian book!! Although I tend to dislike books that sneak in Christian undertones, I did like the book as a whole. Could I have lived without the lines about one man and one woman getting married and birthing the next generation... Yes! Did it sour my entire experience... definitely not!
I found a few parallels in this story to the wonderfully written series by Scott Westerfeld, Uglies. In both stories, characters live in a society where when they come of age, they are forced to make a choice to change their appearance. In both books, I saw parallels to our own society. In every country, every day there are children who think themselves not beautiful enough or thin enough or something of the sort. With teen suicide at an all time high in our world, I believe more books with morals in them about loving yourself should be written. This story definitely tries to portray that all people are born different and your differences are what make you beautiful... and I LOVED that about it!
I have read reviews that are negative about Remake, because they believe that it's strong Christian undertones are masking a diss on LGBT lifestyles. I can definitely see where someone may misinterpret that from what was written, but as a Homosexual Male, I choose to not see it that way. If the author was meaning to write this book as a "hate-letter to the LGBT community", then why was the character's best friend, Theron (who was in love with her), okay with her earlier decision to change sexes and become a man? Although she later decided against that change, Theron still wanted to live with her and his love for her never faltered.
I'm not giving a run through of the book in this review, because I really want you to read it for yourself. Give me feedback on what you think about the book, because it does really drag up a lot of emotions.
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