The Program

I had such high hopes for this book. I breezed through this in 2 days and while I enjoyed reading this, I kept wanting it to take a turn into a much deeper, complex world than it actually was. I think I had such high hopes and if I were to write this novel, I would have taken it to a much different direction and here's why and how.

PLEASE BE AWARE OF SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

In part 2 of the book, when Sloane was in The Program, Realm was introduced. I wished so much to get to know Realm. He was dark and kind of a jerk and we don't know why. But I wanted more from him. Secretly, I wanted him to be the main protagonist and we as a reader don't really know whether he's really on Sloane side or working for The Program. Especially after in Part 3 when it was revealed that he loved Sloane, it was just really hard to believe that he fell in love with her only from knowing her in the Program. What I really wanted was for Realm to have had a past with Sloane and that later on revealed that both Realm and Sloane to have gone through the Program more than once. So both of their memories were wiped before and that the book began with Sloane and James but it was 2 years after she's gone through the Program which erased her memories of Realm. I wanted Realm to have somehow found the purple pill, took it and his memories started to come back. Hence he's infiltrated the Program and wanted to help Sloane from the inside. I also wanted Sloane and Realm then to work together from the inside to find out why the Program exists and why teenagers are getting this "disease". I think what bothers me most if that there's actually no explanation as to why this world has become this way, which I feel is kind of just a cop out for the author. It's like she didn't think about it so why write about it. But readers want to know!!! Anyway, I wanted a "big bad" and there wasn't one. It would have been nice to have them end this first book with Realm, James, and Sloane on the run just kind of like how it ended in the actual book and the next book will all be about how the three of them come to expose the people behind the program.

I didn't like James as much as I thought I would. I wanted to like him but just couldn't feel for him as much. If this book went in the direction I wanted, I still thought there could have been a love triangle, but if done well, James could have still been a great person and had a happier ending in the end but have Realm and Sloane have a much deeper back story.

Also, what really didn't work for me was that most of the part 3 part of the book was us as readers going on a journey with Sloane to piece together her memory. Memory that we already know because we read about all of it in part 1. I think this approach is rather a waste of time and I wished for more mystery and intrigue rather than watching someone retrace their steps.

Ugh I just had such high hopes for this book. I could have been so much better and just wanted it to work so badly! Oh well! I have book 2 but I don't know if I'm looking forward to reading that at all!!!

To start off good, I loved the story. Taking away people’s thoughts to “help” them. It’s interesting the way they do it, and it makes perfect sense. You take a red pill to make you talk about things you would normally be shut off about, and then take a yellow pill after to forget everything you just talked about. It’s great. But Sloane and James’ relationship ruined it for me. And that may be user error, because I went into this book thinking there wouldn’t be any romance, maybe some here and there, but nothing like this. They are completely dependent on each other and act like they’re dying when they’re apart. Whenever they’re separated, it takes over the whole storyline. Sloane can’t stop constantly thinking about James and does everything in her power to find him instead of checking herself and realizing she doesn’t actually need him to survive. There is a perfectly executed story being interrupted by her constant wining about James. I also think the writer overdid the kissing. For the first half of the book around every 3 chapters there’s a kissing scene. I’m in the age group of 13-16 and I think this book was fine and appropriate for me. but I don’t think I’ll be buying the second book due to fear of it getting worse. There’s a whole stack of books to this series so there’s bound to be something that isn’t age appropriate. Especially with the way this person wrights. I would also like to point out how delusional Sloane is. James is using every last ounce of his emotions to help Sloane. He lets her break down whilst he holds her. He is so strong for her, saying all the right things to make her feel ok again. But the second he has any bit of emotion, if he dared to be a human and have a bad day, Sloane would break down. She would get upset with him for not comforting her the right way, when she hasn’t comforted him at all. I’m sure James is going through so much, but he holds it in just for her, so she can feel ok. It’s frustrating to watch, and I’m on James side. I don’t think you should hold back from buying this book because of these things, because the story is great, and if your fine with dealing with this relationship then I think you’ll love this book. Everything else is great. And I think if you have some extra time and want a new book, you should try this one out. It’s only one book, and if you don’t like it, you can always just stop reading. And no one is forcing you to buy the whole series. I know this was long, and there’s even more I would say if it wasn’t for spoilers, but I hope it helped.

horrible messages and themes; promotes suicide culture

It was to dull of a book.

I can honestly say I finished the whole series. It was a different approach on mental health and seen in an adventure as well as worldwide crisis. I struggle with depression so in the beginning I thought I thought this would be one of those books where depression is looked at as a bad thing, but I continued to read on it was made to be a fight remaining true to yourself while healing your mental health. So many people want to throw pills, varies amounts of therapy, and other things at you to overcome depression, but that's not how it works. The main character reminded me of myself when I was younger and thinking that I had to hide my depression in order to seem "normal", but what is normal? I think this is a great read for pre-teens and teenagers facing mental health issues.

Even though I'm a young adult, I love dystopian novels. I was so excited when I found this series in the Teen section of B&N! Unfortunately it didn't take long to realize that it was mostly soft porn hidden in a storyline directed towards kids. Sickening. Why do writers these days think its acceptable to push sex and blowjobs etc on young teens? Could have been a good story if the author had used common decency, but I tossed the first book midway through.

Great book! An easy read, with a really nice plot. At first, it reads a bit "heavy" because the subject of suicide is never easy. The writing flows, the language is not stilted, the dialogues are realistic (meaning, not some abstract weirdo conversations that happen only in books but the way people *actually* talk in real life). Looking forward to reading the sequel!

I had high hopes for this book, but alas it was not a great read for me. first of all, the first third was sooo depressing. not normal dystopian depressing where you expect things to be a bit off but nothing is good. I hate books like this where they make the adults i.e. parents so dumb and unconcerned. I find it very hard to believe that EVERY adult agrees with the way things are being handled in this world and only the teenagers know that something is wrong with the system. At first I was very intrigued by the premise because they made depression sound like a disease that can become contagious like the flu and I was interested in going into more specifics into how it got that way. Nope. absolutely no explanation as to how depression had "morphed" into a contagious disease like a virus. So is this what the author intended and only explained it in one sentence or is it regular depression that has been hyperbolized? If so, its a bit offensive that in a world set in the future we have seemingly taken a huge step back in our understanding and treatment of this mental illness. I could perhaps get passed this disappointment and hope for more explanation in future books of the series if it weren't for the fact that I hated the characters. The love interest i.e. boyfriend, ugg! He was a jerk that only wanted sex (which is another reason I disliked this book. Too many sexual references which I found distasteful and wouldn't want my child to read) and their relationship seemed caustic and too co-dependent. It makes me wonder if they would still have liked each other in a world where they didn't "need" each other so much. After part one I began to skim and while near the end gets a bit interesting again, none of the characters had any redeeming qualities and I will definitely not be continuing with this series.

I purchased this book because one of my 8th grade students requested it. When it came in the mail, I started reading it to make sure it was 8th grade friendly. While I would not put it in an 8th grade classroom (had to apologize to my student) it was a wonderful read, for me. The Program is a dystopian future where suicide is an epidemic for kids ages 13-17 and if the kids seem depressed or not "healthy" they go through The Program where their bad memories are erased in the hopes of correcting the problem.

Was in great condition