Review: Inside Out by Maria Snyder

Book Description:

Keep Your Head Down.

Don't Get Noticed.

Or Else.

I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I've got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution.

Source: Won from Shweta (Thanks!)

My Thoughts:

Trella can’t resist a challenge. A prophet tells her that he has something that contains the location of the Gateway hidden in the pipes. As a natural risk-taker, Trella sets out to prove the prophet wrong, only to find something to spike her hopes up and to start disaster.

The world of Inside Out was choked with the strong restraining of the Pop Cops and broken with the miscommunication between the scrubs and the Uppers. The squares and rectangles of Inside are filled with everything they need to survive – water, air, food and other needs. Most people assume there’s no such thing as Outside. No liberation from the enclosure that is Inside and forever shackled to what is predestined for them. The scrubs are born to labor, to have no more freedom than what little they have and to have no choice. Crowded below and spacious above, the space between them is the only thing stopping them from realizing the startling truth about the Inside and about the Pop Cops.

Maria Snyder writes incredibly well. The plot was rich with twists and turns that unearthed the real picture underneath the one painted by the people who control Inside. I loved the hope that propelled the cast to move forward despite the risk and danger.

Inside Out is a gripping escape from reality that zooms into a future that is painted with the blood of those who fought and rebelled. This echo of domination and rule reflects the same hunger for power that lies within most people today.

Rating: