Title: The First City
(The Dominion Trilogy #3)
Author: Joe Hart
Genre: YA, Dystopia, Science Fiction
First published: March 28th 2017
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Finished reading: March 24th 2017
Pages: 444
“There’s always hope, but change is the most difficult thing in the world for human beings to do. There is safety in static. Change is the great disrupter, even when it is for the good.”
*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***
The First City is the third and final installment of The Dominion Trilogy I started reading some time last year. I remember not being completely convinced by the first book, especially because of the not-so-original dystopian plot and annoying main character, but I enjoyed the second book a lot better. This improvement was probably the main reason I decided to request a copy of the third book, although I don’t like leaving series unfinished either. Unfortunately, I don’t think The First City continued the same line of improvement seen in book two. In fact, I had a really hard time finishing this third book… Like I said before, I never liked the main character Zoey, but in The First City she is becoming amost impossible to tolerate. I have even seriously considered DNFing it at various points… Her self-centered, annoying and whiney dialogues and actions made this read into a true struggle. An example? Her thoughts are basically all about how she is only putting others in danger and that she should do everything alone; sacrificing herself for the greater good; just put that on repeat indefinitely and you get the idea. Luckily the other POVs were slightly better and that’s probably why I decided to see it through. The plot yet again isn’t all that original and I’m not sure if everything is completely credible, but the ending was satisfying enough even though a bit cheesy. All in all the best of this series definitely came a bit early.
WARNING: Possible spoilers! Please don’t read this summary if you haven’t read the first two books in this trilogy yet. I’ll keep the summary super short but it’s impossible to keep it completely spoiler-free…
It’s the 2030s and the world Zoey has grown up in hasn’t been an easy one for women. Little girls stopped being born suddenly years before, and the natural balance could never be restored. Zoey grew up in a research center (ARC) along with other girls, the investigators experimenting on them and trying to find a way to save the world. A lot of things have happened since then and Zoey is about to get a very shocking message: she might be the key and only hope for salvation.
Like I said before, I mostly decided to read the final book of this trilogy because the second book was such an improvement. Unfortunately the main character didn’t change her way in The First City, and I ended up spending most of my time having my patience tested to its limit. It’s a shame a character can influence my feelings about a story in this way, but claiming otherwise would not have been honest. Also, the plot in general sounds too much like your typical dystopian story and some of it was farfetched, but Hiraku’s POV did add a little something extra to the plot.
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