The Line

Rachel lives with her mother on The Property. The good thing about living there is that it’s far from the city where the oppressive government is most active. The bad thing, at least to most people, is that it’s close to the Line—an uncrossable section of the National Border Defense System, an invisible barrier that encloses the entire country.

She can see the Line from the greenhouse windows, but she is forbidden to go near it. Across the Line is Away, and though Rachel has heard many whispers about the dangers there, she’s never really believed the stories. Until the day she hears a recording that could only have come from across the Line.
from terihall.com

Beth says 3 Stars...

I really didn't enjoy this one, which was upsetting. The concept behind it is so fantastic that I wanted to love it, but couldn't. The issue I had was really with the writing. This was the most disappointing of the debuts for me thus far. All I can say was that the writing was stylistically odd. I never really felt connected to the characters because the perspective kept changing. The 3rd person narrative shifted focus whenever it was convenient, which just became confusing with the mystery elements of the narrative. The issue was that all of the people had different amounts of knowledge about the story, and this just created inconsistencies for me as the reader. I was never entirely sure of what was going on. These problems with the writing also really kept me from connecting with the characters. I need to be completely drawn into the world, and really wasn't. Without that pull, I didn't really care what happened to them, as awful as that sounds. Also, in order to get all of the necessary information in Hall had Rachel recite history lessons to her mother. It just felt forced and placed in there solely for the purpose of explanation. This is going to be a short review because I just don't have that much to say about it. It wasn't awful, but it could have been a whole lot better. What could have happened was that it could have lived up to the potential of the original idea and been a fascinating look at a scary future.
Book from Library