FEUDS

Cole, a Geneserian, and Davis, a Prior, battle segregation, disease and meddling families to cling to the strongest love they’ve ever known.

Davis has never been anything but beautiful and accomplished. But life is still hard for this 16-year-old. Just because she’s genetically programmed to overcome certain biological events, such as illness, doesn’t mean she can avoid complicated relationships with her friends and family. She also has to practice hard to achieve her dream of becoming a ballerina like her mother. Cole has it much worse. He lives in the slums and resorts to cage fighting for cash. When they meet and fall in love, it’s complicated, and not just because there’s a deadly disease striking down Priors. Debut novelist Hastings relies too heavily on stereotypes to offer anything new to readers hungry for tales of love in the time of dystopia. Instead, this book feels like a novel they’ve all read before. The action sometimes leaps over explanatory moments so it’s hard to catch up to characters, who flit from one emotionally overloaded scene to another. Secondary characters like Davis’ friend Oscar and a creepy boatman are more intriguing that the main characters, who suffer from dialogue made of clichés: “I’ll never give up if you’re beside me.”

A disappointing futuristic retelling of Romeo and Juliet.