Review: Outside In by Maria V. Snyder

Outside In by Maria V. Snyder
Published: January 2011

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Available: Amazon

Synopsis:

Me? A leader?

Okay, I did prove that there's more to Inside than we knew. That a whole world exists beyond this cube we live in. And finding that led to a major rebellion—between worker scrubs like me and the snobby uppers who rule our world. Make that ruled. Because of me, we're free. I thought that meant I was off the hook, and could go off on my own again—while still touching base with Riley, of course. He's the one upper I think I can trust. But then we learned that there's outside and then there is Outside.

And something from Outside wants In.

Review:

When I finished reading this I was so torn. I loved Inside out, and had really high hopes for Outside In. But I was left feeling very blah about it. There was just a feeling of the author not really caring about developing anything in depth or about where the story was going. 

Trella is still a strong character and I'm glad that at least didn't change, but her relationship with Riley just confused me. There's no showing of how they are falling in love. We are just told they are, and then given a couple of make out sessions, which while being steamy, felt more like filler. I wanted to be part of their falling in love, and we don't get that. Maybe Snyder added in the romance angle because it's expected in YA, but this is not a romance. It is a science fiction novel, and I think it would have worked better if the romance weren't in there.

I also had a hard time with the plot. Too many people were double crossing everyone else, and there's no real explanation as to who the Outsiders really are and what their reasoning was. It's possible that Snyder is planning on a third book in the series to answer these questions, but I don't think I really care, and it makes me really sad to say that because I enjoyed Inside Out so much. 

The book wasn't horrible, and it's possible that my ambivalence towards science fiction writing is coming through. The writing is decent, and there were some good scenes between Trella and Riley, and Trella and Lamont, just not enough to get me through he confusion of Trella being captured, tricked and tortured by a different group every couple of chapters.