Book Review: The Moon Dwellers (The Dwellers Saga Book 1) by David Estes

 

Source: Amazon

Summary: In a desperate attempt to escape destruction decades earlier, humankind was forced underground, into the depths of the earth, creating a new society called the Tri-Realms. After her parents and sister are abducted by the Enforcers, seventeen-year-old Adele, a member of the middle-class moon dwellers, is unjustly sentenced to life in prison for her parents' crimes of treason. Against all odds, Adele must escape from the Pen and find her family, while being hunted by a deranged, killing machine named Rivet, who works for the President. She is helped by two other inmates, Tawni and Cole, each of whom have dark secrets that are better left undiscovered. Other than her friends, the only thing she has going for her is a wicked roundhouse kick and two fists that have been well-trained for combat by her father. At the other end of the social spectrum is Tristan, the son of the President and a sun dweller. His mother is gone. He hates his father. Backed by only his servant and best friend, Roc, he leaves his lavish lifestyle in the Sun Realm, seeking to make something good out of his troubled life. When a war breaks out within the Tri-Realms, Tristan is thrust into the middle of a conflict that seems to mysteriously follow Adele as she seeks to find her family and uncover her parents true past. In their world, someone must die.

*Note review may contain spoilers. 


 

Review

Whew, it's been a while since I reviewed something.  I see drafts for 3 other books but alas, they'll unlikely to be published since it's hard to review something long after reading it.  In an attempt to keep track of things I read, I'm making more of an effort to review things in a timely manner.  I came up on this book while browsing the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.  It had a relatively interesting title and the summary seemed fine so I picked it to read.  In an attempt to organize my review I'm going to review via its individual elements.

Characters: Adele is the main character, she like almost every other female lead in a YA science fiction/fantasy has to be charmingly unaware of how beautiful she is.  She's super athletic and powerful and excels at hand-to-hand combat - another well worn trope.  I think Estes treads the "safe" ground with Adele...while she's not terribly boring and has some sense of humor she's no Rose Hathaway (girl makes me giggle) she's also generically "brash at first with thorns, but actually super good and super compassionate."  I found no character trait of hers that stood out from other YA leads of this genre, but nothing too annoying (too stupid to live, for example).  Tawni (name seems a bit 80s porn to me but OK...) and Cole are more interesting, Cole being very dynamic and unique in some ways - he really brought the story alive for me at certain parts.  Estes succeeds in leveraging their personalities to bring out Adele in an engaging way.  Elsey (I think...), Adele's younger sister reminds me too much of other younger sisters (Prim anyone?) - the seemingly fragile but stoic and tough little sister who too can kick ass.  At this point, the characters are getting into tropey territory.  What actually annoyed me is Tristan and to a lesser extent, Roc and their subplot/dynamics.  I think...that the women throwing underwear at Tristan in the book was supposed to be humorous but really, every time he went around anywhere it was "OH NO UNDERWEAR THROWN, I'm so hot" and even Adele starts to become hypnotized and comments on how his looks are straight from a magazine.  Please.  I'll get into that in the plot review.  It's a very juvenile and superficial way of building up a character, he's SO HOT WITH ROCK HOT ABS (I can't help but imagine this is the supreme fantasy of males that the author is living through vicariously) but has a heart of gold and isn't selfish and mean.  This is so ... basic.  The brother and president are both kind of stock evil.  Generic store brand stock evil. 

Plot:  Is there or is there not instalove?  That is the question.  I know the author "cleverly" (read: not) sets up something that's not instant attraction related because of the pain in their skulls when they meet "mystery" to seemingly subvert the trope but really for no good reason towards the last 1/4 of the book - Adele starts assuming he has feelings for her (granted he did lay his life on the line to save her and her friends), starts blushing and getting swoony over him.  As far as an objective observer on my end, all I would conclude if I were her is that he desperately wanted answers to why she causes him such pain and to start a rebellion.  I find the "romance" development awkward and cheap.  He pursues her for NOT ROMANTIC feelings, but once they meet up it might as well be instalove.  She doesn't even try to fight it like some other leads.  She jumps right in it, more or less.  Also I hate that the author pulled the trope of "well an ethnic person, especially a black person HAS TO DIE."  Why can't Tawni's parents have been killed and her sister raped instead of Cole?  I'm not saying this is racist, I'm saying it's a trope and I'm tired of it.  Estes has some issues with character arcs (as I ranted about over the romance).  I like that Roc resented Tristan for going on some wild goose chase, but then after a near death experience he mystically starts realizing IT WAS ALL MEANT TO BE AND I'm WITH YOU ALL THE WAY MAN, NO WORRIES.  No!  Cop-out, too easy.  People have to come to self-realization with logical progressions.  My main issue was that instead of SHOWING rather than telling about 40% of the novel is telling.  Just a random example but instead of a character pursuing a goal and acting on something else to show the audience, that he or she is pursuing the goal a character will say "I'm working towards the goal because I feel it is important and I realize now that I was wrong before, but no longer.  Now I recognize that I made a mistake and to avoid this mistake, I'm going to do this."  Again, juvenile because it's literally spoon feeding and pushing basic plot developments stated in simple, direct ways.

Setting: When I read the caves thing, I thought "City of Sparks/Ember."  Then the plot twist of Earth Dwellers made me think of the same book.  The prince having a heart of gold despite a one dimensional evil father who he doesn't agree with reminded me of Maxon and his father.  I'm sure there are other components from other YA books but I can't recall it right now.  While it's not completely unique, it has some interesting aspects like the Sun -> Moon -> Stars progression and the architecture that's set up.  It also kind of reminded me of Snowpiercer.  The dynamic that earth dwellers exist but no one knows, is also similar to Enclave.

Conclusion: Too many over worn tropes, relatively stock female protagonist and lackluster male love interest make this book relatively unsuccessful for me.  I thought that the friendship dynamic was the best aspect, but was annoyed that Cole died.  Because of this, I don't intend to read the sequels unless I run out of things to read and/or become lazy and want something throwaway to read.

Rating: 4/10.