You’ve read 1984 right? I’m sure it was awhile ago for you. Because I recall it’s required in high school classes. That was about 6 years ago for me and I needed a refreshers course on how the government could screw us over. With the “War on Terror” constantly being fought ever since 9/11, trackers in our iphones and the government authorizing phone taps on innocent civilians we need a refresher course on what it means to violate our privacy.
As a society we need to be a tad bit more paranoid. Technology’s invading every second and people need to be more aware. This book can do that! Spread it, it’s available in ebook format in fact you can download it right now. {hyperlink}. If you have children, grandchildren or your an adult you should read this book. It’s this generations 1984.
Set in the near future in San Francisco California, this novel emulates the Department of Homeland Securities actions in pretext with the technological advances that are in place with the world today. It is a fight for our right to privacy, told thru the eyes of seventeen year old Marcus aka WIn5sOn and Mlk3y.
Marcus feels his privacy has been violated following a terrorist attack on the SF Bart where he is detained and mistreated. He fights back by starting the X-net to get around the privacy violations that are happening. This is his own online network that teens all around the city start to use through a gaming system similar to Xbox.
Through this they launch a technological revolution. Jamming the security censors so that the DHS (government) catch the wrong people. People without warnings are held up and searched... (Imagine having to have a body scan from the tsa before work daily).
These new laws and rules force Marcus and his friends to rebel. In the hopes of overthrowing the DHS and setting his captured friends free. Along the way he falls in love and loses close friends to the fear of the “man”.
Needless to say this is a good novel for the technically savvy generation to read. It reminded me of the rights I have as a human being living in the United States. My right to freedom and my right to privacy.
Cllllaaaarrrrkkkkiiaaa,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very nice review. I think it will keep the reader reading, hah. I like your description on the book and how you have related it to something else we have seen in the past. Well done.
"My right to freedom and my right to privacy" is a sentence with a subject but no verb...you could link it with the previous sentence with a colon instead of a period and it would be just dandy!
ReplyDeleteOther than that, I like how you started with your reaction/analysis and and went into the summary from there; it set up a nice context for the review.
"Technology’s invading every second and people need to be more aware." Aware of what? You could elaborate on that, but otherwise I think you do a nice job with fleshing out details.
The beginning paragraphs are a good way to get people interested in reading the rest of the article. The summary section is maybe a little long, but overall this is a great start. Maybe check some of the spelling errors and whatnot?
ReplyDeleteYou definitely succeeded in writing with the tone that you wanted to write in. I think that you could maybe work the introductory summary of the book into the review earlier. Right now it feels sort of like two reviews, one that is all about how great and important the book is, and one that is more about the book itself. Blend the two together and it will be awesome.
ReplyDeleteT-WAG SIGNING OFF.
Hi Clarkia.
ReplyDeleteI like the focused approach of your review -- I find that your purpose of "scaring" (or perhaps compelling) people to read the book offers a nice thread that ties the whole review together. I also appreciate that you start out with a catchy opening; as a reader of Amazon reviews I find I most often keep reading when the writer grabs my attention in some way, especially with a reference that we share whether or not we've read the book under review.
At the same time, I think there are moments when your tone gets a little kitschy and jokey, such as here:
" As a society we need to be a tad bit more paranoid. Technology’s invading every second and people need to be more aware. This book can do that! "
I'd finally suggest a lot of editing on the sentences as there are a lot of incomplete ones that really just needed to be attached to the previous one so they have a subject (Ex: "These new laws and rules force Marcus and his friends to rebel. In the hopes of overthrowing the DHS and setting his captured friends free." Just take out the period between "rebel" and "in".) Check out the last two sentences of the review -- they also need joining with some kind of phrase, maybe "such as".
Amanda
I really like the voice you used for this draft. It's very definitive and strong. It gets across the sense of paranoia well.
ReplyDeleteMy only real gripe would be that it feels a little lengthy. Try shortening it down so that it is a little bit more palatable for the bite size reading of an amazon viewer.
Also, shave a bit off the story summery. Saying that he is both W1n5t0n and M1k3y seems a bit much to me.
Overall fairly solid.