Middle Ground – Z. Elizabeth

Synopsis

In the final installment to the trilogy begun with “Awaken, ” Maddie returns home to make her final stand against Digital School, and uncovers deeply guarded secrets about her family an new truths about herself.

5 out of 5 Stars

2012 review of Awaken
2013 review of Middle Ground

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My Review

Parents show you life is a paved road. Friends show you the road isn’t there yet, its waiting for you to carve it out. Parents show you life is a handbook, with rules set in place. Friends show you how to break the rules you’re handed.

*ARC from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I first read Awaken back in 2012. I was captivated by this dystopian novel because it spoke truth. It’s about a digital era where everyone hides behind a computer, too afriad to go outside and converse face-to-face. And it got me thinking about right now. How we are all attached to our phones and computers and anything else that is digital and means you don’t have to speak to anyone in person. I used to look around the train station on the way to work and count how many were on their phones. It was nearly everyone, including myself. And I think that’s why I became attached to this series, that and because it is amazing. It has so much depth into the storyline, it evolves at every turn and you become fascinated about the characters, the digitalisation of everything, of where Katie is going to take you.

I’m not one for reading YA. It takes my fancy every now and again but this is one series I pined over. For each book released, I have been anxious for them to release so I can get my next fix of Justin and Maddie, the next chapter in the Digital world and how everything will or wont play out.

Still Point is the third and final book in the Awaken and holy crap, it’s full of twists and shocks. I cant even give you a brief overview without spoiling the story, Let’s just say, it shocked me; I was not expecting anything of what happened, to happen in book three!

After the slight cliffy in Middle Ground, I was waiting to see what Maddie was going to do. And although her decision is one I didn’t think would happen, I was proud of her for doing it. She has always been up against her father, fighting against his creation since she was fifteen and she wants to destroy the digital world, wanting people to actually talk face-to-face, go to school in a classroom, and just spend time together without a computer screen in front of them.

I was proud of her for pushing and seeing it through. Although my heart pained when you could see her dilemma about her dad, about Justin, about her feelings, about how she just didn’t know what to do anymore. I felt so sorry for her, because Justin is obsessed with taking down the digital world and yes, Maddie wants it too, but she wants to be at the top of the list, not third or forth and you could see it did effect her to be pushed down the list. You watch her fight against herself, dig deep into her soul and watch her see exactly what she really wants; from herself and from her life. And yes, I was just a little bit shocked at her choice but you know what, I could definitely see it. And I really want to write more about that, but I cant. It will spoil it all so I will just smile to myself and mentally high-five Maddie for taking charge of her life and making the right choice – for her!

Also the tattoo makes an awful lot of sense now. I have read Maddie’s tattoo, the short novella about how she got her tattoo and how it came about. We also meet the guy who designed it, Jax and he is swoon worthy. I really liked him. And that’s all I am saying on him haha. You need to find out about him throughout this book. It was a push and pull situation and I was in the middle not knowing what to do.

Justin’s whole life is taking down the DS (Digital Schools) and DC’s (Detention centers). It goes 1) Destroying DS 2) Maddie and although I completely love Justin; he’s passionate and determined and completely focused on the plan at hand, DS would always be his number one, no matter how much he wants to be with Maddie. And picking and choosing is a hard decision, when your heart wants both.

I loved how selfless he was at the end though. How he actually put Maddie’s feelings first for once. He wanted to see her happy and not sad and broken over him and I felt proud of him for doing what he did, even if I wasn’t expecting it. He has gone through so much in his life – with fighting against DS, recruiting members and then falling for Maddie but when the time came, her happiness definitely meant more to him and although I was shocked at how it ended, it was kind of perfect for Justin too. He got what he had always wanted and he fought the hard way to get there but he deserved it after the hard work he has put in year after year.

I would love to see a little novella about him, Katie. Hint hint;) I think it would be amazing to see him after Still Point or even before Awaken, how he began to be so passionate about taking down the DS and finding Maddie. To be honest, I am being greedy and want more Justin haha.

There are a lot of twists and turns throughout Still Point – many had me gasping and eyes wide open. I was not expecting any of the things to happen. And I love that! I loved that everything I thought I knew during the first two books, just completely messed me over and it wasn’t all that it seemed. But it completely made sense, and I trusted that Katie knew what she were doing and it worked! I also was not expecting that ending. Not after everything that happened in Awaken and Middle Ground. But as I said, it made sense. And I really want to blab about what happened, but I know I cant. I need someone else to read this book so I can talk about it because, man, I NEED to talk about it. I need to know someone else was like “Oh holy crap” and “Oh holy crap, I cant believe Justin did that, but bless him.” SEE, I’m being vague, but you will understand when you get the chance to read this book.

If you haven’t had the chance to get acquainted with this series, I demand that you do. It is one of my favourite dystopian series because, really, it could happen.

Synopsis

For four weeks Maddie has been living in Los Angeles, trying to be good. But no matter how hard she tries, something inside her won’t be sated. She can’t live a life of half-truths and false pretenses. So one night, she says how she really feels.

That’s all it takes. One night. One bad decision, and Maddie is thrown into a detention center where she’s forced to undergo secretive treatment meant to squash her rebellious streak. The powers that be call it rehabilitation. Maddie calls it torture.

Alone, Maddie will not survive. But if she can find something to hold on to – an image of Justin, their love – maybe she can fight. And if she’s really lucky, maybe she’ll even win.

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My Review

This is book two in the Awaken series. If you have yet to read Awaken I encourage you to do so. The sequel to the book did not disappoint at all!

Middle Ground picks up where Awaken finishes. Maddie is now living in LA with her brother. If you read Awaken, you will know that Maddie is now a part of the rebels and because of something that happened in the first book, right now she should be in a Detention Centre, but her father, who designed and made the DS (Digital school), used his power to make it look like she was. He sent her to live with her brother and to make sure she didn’t get into anymore trouble. But come on, its Maddie!

While living in LA, Maddie, albeit is happy, also misses her boyfriend Justin who is working at intercepting other kids who are on their way to the Detention centres and inviting them to join their cause. The cause is trying to get rid of the DS for good. They believe that people should have the right to go to school, interact face to face without everything being digitalized. But DS keeps kids safe; there is hardly any crimes and everyone who helps run this programme will do whatever it takes to make sure nothing happens to it.

But when Maddie and her friends go to a virtual nightclub, Maddie decides to test the people there and causes trouble in the club. But this incident is her last because before long, the feds are a-knocking and hauling her to the detention centre for rehabilitation into the DS world. Always being rescued by Justin and their friends, this time there is nothing they can do, and no way to get her out.

What goes on behind closed doors is something that no one will ever see or witness apart from the people inside. It is horrific. Maddie figures out that they are brainwashing the ‘patients’ to make them too scared to face the outside world so they will become dependent on the technology once more, and also Maddie is becoming scared too, her only ‘forbidden’ friend in the center is Gabe, who is a member of staff and has never touched a computer in his life. He helps Maddie through everything but it’s down to Maddie to live through the torment she is suffering and find a way out…her only hope of holding on is the love she has for Justin.

I absolutely fell in love with the second instalment. I have to say that Katie’s writing has definitely gotten stronger (I mean no offence at all to this) and I loved how her style kept me captivated and wanting to keep reading right till the very end. The book is descriptive and it definitely gave me vision of what the detention centre was like and how much horror was behind those walls, hidden away from the outside world. The characters are developed so much that you begin to feel every little emotion they felt, especially Justin and Maddie. It was hard not to fall ever deeper in love with these two. Maddie is utterly besotted with Justin, her love for him is overwhelming, and it’s something that got her through her time in the center.

You could easily see that Justin was in love with Maddie too, and it aggravated me that he didn’t say it back to her, because it was completely obvious. But he would do anything to be with her and get her out of the center and back with him, where she belongs. When they are reunited each time they see each other, I just kept wishing she would run away and go with him, but Maddie was a tough thing and stay at the center, helping her friends to understand and discover exactly what was happening to the kids, along with the help of new recruit, Gabe, who fitted nicely into their little group.

The ending completely set it up for the next book. Albeit, it wasn’t a cliff-hanger but it does leave you wondering what Maddie is going to do. Cannot wait to the last book in this installment!

Again, much the same of my review about Awaken, it truly makes you think about a world where technology completely enters the world, where hardly any face-to-face interactions happen outside the house and you do everything on a computer. Yes, it may be ‘safer’ and crime free but you will always get people wondering about life outside a computer, much like the kids who are in the detention centers and of course, the rebels. Would you like to be confined to a computer world for the rest of your life without really any human contact? I know what my answer would be. A definite HELL NO.