TITLE: The Raging Ones
AUTHOR: Krista & Becca Ritchie
RELEASED: August 14, 2018
PUBLISHER: Wednesday Books
FORMAT: Ebook
GENRE: YA Science Fiction
GOODREADS RATING: 4.25
TRIGGERS:
SYNOPSIS
In a freezing world, where everyone knows the day they will die, three teens break all odds.
Franny Bluecastle, a tough city teen, dreams of dying in opulence, to see wealth she’s never known. Like the entire world, she believes it’s impossible to dodge a deathday.
Until the day she does.
Court Icecastle knows wealth. He also knows pain. Spending five years in Vorkter Prison, a fortress of ice and suffering, he dreams of life beyond the people that haunt him and the world that imprisoned him.
Mykal Kickfall fights for those he loves. The rugged Hinterlander shares a frustrating yet unbreakable connection with Court—which only grows more lawless and chaotic as their senses and emotions connect with Franny.
With the threat of people learning they’ve dodged their deathdays, they must flee their planet to survive. But to do so, all three will have to hide their shared bond as they vie for a highly sought after spot in the newest mission to space. Against thousands of people far smarter, who’ll live longer, and never fear death the way that they do.
The Raging Ones had been on my ARC-TBR for quite some time before I finally went and picked it up. Having read the blurb, I was immediately intrigued by the thought of people knowing their death days, not to mention the very rare few who dodged theirs. I’m still not sure whether or not I’d want to know my own death day, to be honest. Would you?
The world-building, or universe-building, was done phenomenally. There’s a lot of information – more about that later on – but it’s needed to get all your questions answered on how everything came to be the way it is in The Raging Ones. How do people find themselves in such permanent cold? How come there’s this huge division between Babes, Fast Trackers and Influentials? What’s the difference between the three? All those questions are answered and I loved that. Nothing more annoying than having a world where things don’t seem to make sense, right?
On NetGalley this novel was described as a sci-fi romance and I honestly liked the sound of that. Especially since I’m still only dabbling around in science fiction so whenever the focus is more on something else – I welcome that, ha. It honestly was intriguing to see how the three main characters coped with being linked to one another. Feelings were bound to surface and it kept me intrigued. Also mentioning that there’s queer rep when it comes to some side characters!
Another thing I have to mention is the ending. I honestly never saw that one coming! It’s a twist I didn’t even consider for one second – which, of course, made me freak out and wish for the sequel even though.. Not everything was rainbows and butterflies..
I’ve ripped open enough bodies to see that we’re all just made of flesh, blood and bones.
Court, Mykal and Franny are our three main characters. They all have their unique characteristics but when it comes to the writing, you honestly couldn’t tell them apart. Court is the only one with a decent education in his past, yet all three of them talk the same way. This simply doesn’t make sense since Mykal has a very lonely past and Franny lived the life of a real Fast Tracker before they all met. Sure, you notice the differences when they say something, but as for their thoughts? It simply wasn’t right.
Apart from that, I also didn’t feel like they were entirely fleshed out and I guess that might be linked to my previous remark. So many things about their histories were being kept a secret or were told bit by tiny bit along the way and it frustrated me to no end not to know how they came to be the people they are. It’s not even something related to only one of them. Nope, it was Court, Mykal and Franny. Unfortunately.
The world is shaded in unusual colors when you can die at any time, without any knowledge of when.
I have to say I struggled a bit reading this one. I don’t know if it was just me, or this book specifically, or everything combined but I was rocking a reading slump hard while I was trying to get through The Raging Ones. It definitely took away some of the reading pleasure I know I would’ve felt otherwise..
Another thing that made it a bit harder for me to read this novel, was how a whole lot of things were happening. Like, a lot. Sometimes it felt like a huge information overload, then there was one twist and turn and event after the other, with more information added on top and.. it felt like too much sometimes? I do realize, looking back, that it may have felt this way because of my reading slump and my inability to focus on the story properly. That can definitely explain how I was struggling with all the events and information, right?
Having four bad remarks versus three good ones. Well, I guess it shows how torn I am about this novel. I had some issues with it – sure – but I still enjoyed the story, so for that.. I guess my usual “meh-rating” of three cupcakes!
What’s a book you remember enjoying, but didn’t rate four or five stars?
Does it happen often or is it something that only happens occasionally?
Books & Munches 
I think the last one I put as three stars is Symptoms of Being Human which I enjoyed but it had some issues that I had to put three stars.
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Definitely understandable. I read a book not that look ago and I loooved the story, but there were a lot of issues that made me go from five stars to three stars.
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One that I definitely think of which is a better example is Since You’ve Been Gone. I was debating the rating because I loved most of it but I just had some issues that really bothered me that made me lower it.
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I’ve heard about that one, but nothing bad so far yet. It isn’t really on my TBR anyway but still.
It’s funny how certain things can make us lower our rating while we did enjoy the story a lot.
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Yes it’s really weird. It is very beloved and I still liked it. There was just this one thing that irked me so much that I had to lower it. Ugh it was such a shame too. If it wasn’t for that, it would have been 5 stars.
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I had a difficult time telling the main characters apart too… I did like that twist though. Totally didn’t expect that!
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To me this sounds like it’s just trying to be too many things at the same time and the focus moved from the characters.
I really enjoy sci-fi, but my favourites usually have great characters as well.
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People know when they’re supposed to be death? Wow this sounds intriguing. I’m adding it to my TBR. Great review Kathy!
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