The Thousandth Floor
(The Thousandth Floor #1, By: Katharine McGee)
SUMMARY:
NEW YORK CITY AS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE.
A thousand-story tower stretching into the sky. A glittering vision of the future where anything is possible—if you want it enough.
WELCOME TO MANHATTAN, 2118.
A hundred years in the future, New York is a city of innovation and dreams. Everyone there wants something…and everyone has something to lose.
LEDA COLE’s flawless exterior belies a secret addiction—to a drug she never should have tried and a boy she never should have touched.
ERIS DODD-RADSON’s beautiful, carefree life falls to pieces when a heartbreaking betrayal tears her family apart.
RYLIN MYERS’s job on one of the highest floors sweeps her into a world—and a romance—she never imagined…but will this new life cost Rylin her old one?
WATT BAKRADI is a tech genius with a secret: he knows everything about everyone. But when he’s hired to spy for an upper-floor girl, he finds himself caught up in a complicated web of lies.
And living above everyone else on the thousandth floor is AVERY FULLER, the girl genetically designed to be perfect. The girl who seems to have it all—yet is tormented by the one thing she can never have.
Amid breathtaking advancement and high-tech luxury, five teenagers struggle to find their place at the top of the world. But when you're this high up, there's nowhere to go but down....
Published August 2016 by HarperCollins
REVIEW:
I gave this book 3.5 stars. It was a fun read especially because it reminded me of Gossip Girls, just set in the future. McGee did a wonderful job of pushing our current world a bit further (with technology specifically) in order to paint a unique picture of the future. However, the excessive amount of POVs and the lower stakes for many of the characters ultimately lowered my overall rating.
I enjoyed that the story was different from most dystopias in that it focused more on the every day lives of the main characters rather than on the government system. However, because of this, the character stakes felt minimal compared to a more traditional dystopia. Instead of the characters risking their lives and revolting, we followed them as they experienced things like heartbreak, addiction and family issues. While these are also valid and interesting stakes, they felt much more consistent with issues that would come up in a contemporary novel, not a dystopia.
That being said, the world building in this story was extremely well done. Everything from the language the characters used, to the technology that surrounded them, to the luxury of the upper floors made this world come alive. The descriptions seamlessly integrated the unfamiliar futuristic concepts into the story without too much telling. I was instantly intrigued by the world and constantly imagined what it would be like to live in it.
However, the amount of POVs in the story was distracting, especially at the beginning of the book. I was forced to rapidly change perspectives with each chapter, and I would have loved to stick with fewer characters for longer. Because of the extreme amount of POVs, I found that, often, the characters' conflicts (internal or external) dissipated too soon or weren't fully addressed. In the end, you only get to see one major conflict all the way through, and I wanted more, especially since there were hints at them through all of the POVs.
Overall, I enjoyed this story's unique take on a futuristic world where we got to focus on high school drama instead of systemic revolt and war. I loved the world, and the writing flowed easily. However, I would have liked a bit more connection with the characters (via less POVs), as well as more intense stakes for each character.
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