Obtain MARTians Scripted By Blythe Woolston Displayed In Mobi

can't really describe what this book was like, It was weird, but a good weird, I didn't understand some things and I wish it had been longer, with more details, but I think that is one of the points of the story.
Some things were only hinted at and never fully talked about, "MARTians" by Blythe Woolstonhas been on my shelf with hundreds of other books for a few years, I picked it up at a conference, I like to randomly pull a book from the shelf once in awhile and dig in, Yeah this one could have stayed on the shelf,

"MARTians" takes place in a dystopian near future, Zoe Zindleman finds herself, along with her entire school, suddenly graduated early to make room for a company that produces bat excrement to be used for fertilizer.
On the same day, her mother AnnaMom announces that she is leaving, and leaves Zoe to survive on her own in a deserted neighborhood until her home is foreclosed on.
At graduation Zoe is offered two jobs and ends up taking a job at the megastore, AllMART, She meets Timmer, a former neighbor and AllMART employee who invites her to live in the "Warren" with several other lost teens.
This is the story of her time working at AllMART,

Takeaways:

, I will give Woolston credit for choosing a unique topic, I definitely haven't read this story before,

. This seems more like a proposal for a novel, The book really needs editing and reworking, There are lots of plot holes here, Smoother transitions to tie events together are needed, Several scenes need more development and clarity, What is the deer in the store all about The mannequin scene The tuna girl custody case And the ending of the book seems unfinished.
Yikes!

. Woolston needs to spend a lot more time worldbuilding, Since if this meant to be a dystopian novel, the reader needs more in terms of where and when the story takes place, as well as how this world became what it is.


. The characters also are poorly developed, Who is Timmer anyway What is his story Who is Raouler Juliette Jyll Krall Most are onedimensional and, consequently, this reader at least did not invest in them.


. There are several important themes here, Consumerism and capitalism, marketing and advertising, the power of the media, privacy, homelessness, sexism, parenting, the importance of a wellrounded and liberal education, abandonment, guns, the environment, "feedback runaway," mental health, sexuality, survival, life and death, etc.
are all important, relevant themes, but they needed much more exploration and development here, Some of these ideas are simply mentioned and then forgotten,

Ugh! Not recommended,

Read it and weep, Blythe Woolston's MARTians hurts to read because though it's labelled dystopian/futuristic, it seems scarily contemporary,

Zoë's mother abandons her, and her school closes down, She finds work in AllMART and shelter in a laundromat, But it's clear she's living day by day, and doesn't really have a future, There's never a chance to "make money" because she'll be forever in debt to AllMART,

But perhaps the most devastating moment is the casualness in which it's possible to purchase a firearm and ammunition from a megamart.
This may be commonplace to some, but it's far from normal where I live, Yes, the future is terrifying, But knowing that acquiring weapons can be so easy for some RIGHT NOW in real life That's even worse, and the incident in the novel is chilling enough.


But throughout this terribly bleak AllMART existence is a thread of hope: Always look for the ones who need help.
Zoë's one of the lucky people, and now it's on her to spread help around, While the MARTians's ending may seem inconclusive, I get the feeling that as long as

she has friends she'll be OK.
Blythe Woolston is the George Saunders of YA, Brilliant. I received a print copy of this title from Walker Books Australia for review,

A Top Book ofPick

Ten Second Synopsis:
Zoe has always done things by the book and expected life to turn out as she believes it should.
When her school abruptly closes down, her mother leaves town to search for work and Zoe begins her own journey into the working world, Zoe learns that the only skill she'll need is to smile to survive.


First up, I should point out that although I really enjoyed this book, I'm afraid it will be overlooked or seen as lacking by other YA readers due to a few key issues.
For a start, it was both short and a standalone, These were both enormous positives from my point of view, but I know how YA readers love their series,

Secondly, there was no romance at all, despite featuring two protagonists of the same age and opposite sex stuck in an inescapable and rather bleak situation.
"HOORAY!" I cried, when I got to the end without being alternately bored and irritated by paceslowing, bland, repetitive teen romance.
Again, I thought this was an enormous plus and offer kudos to the author for not getting sucked into the blackholelike gravitational pull of peer pressure to put romance in every single YA book.


Finally, there were plenty of aspects of the story that COULD have been fleshed out far more deeply the character of "Belly" and her mysterious fate, the whereabouts of Zoe's mother, what happened to Dolly Lamb ander's family but to do so would have made this a superlong book and resulted, I think, in a shifting of the subtly disturbing and pervasive atmosphere of dystopia.


You see, I think the great strength of this book is that the dystopian aspect isn't all in your face.
There isn't a zompocalypse or some major environmental disaster that throws people together in a minutetminute battle for survival.
Instead, the society described here is so close to our current consumerist society to be deeply disturbing on a psychological level, but just different enough to assure the reader that this is all fiction.
In Zoe's world, you are either a consumer or a worker and there really isn't much scope to be both successfully.
Individuals are taken straight from school graduation to prison, if deemed not capable enough to succeed as a worker, Major retailers control the pay packets and lives of their workers, And ordinary families disband, leaving whole suburbs of houses empty, in order to chase work and security, while the dwellings left behind are stripped of useful materials by those struggling to survive.


There is quite a bit of dark humour throughout the book I only noticed the cheeky nod to literary classic The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the end! and Zoe is a relatable, if naive, narrator.
Timmer provides the lightness that is needed to avoid the whole thing descending into a depressive state and overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the way the author handled the story within such a restrained word count.


While this certainly isn't going to be a blockbusting, seatofyourpants, thrillride of a read for many people, I am giving it my Top Book oftick of approval because it really is a standout in a YA market that has a tendency towards churning out books that aren't prepared to take a risk in generating original characters or plots.
Yeah, nothing spectacular about this bizarre consumerist dystopian novel, There was little to no character development, the plot seemed random, and the ending was rushed and unfinished imo, This is a trimmed down version of my review, to view the full review visit sitelinkThe Book Ramble,

This book was provided by Random House Canada in exchange for an honest review,

When Zoe Zindleman's school closes she's fast tracked to graduation and gets a job at megacorporation AllMART, What follows is not much of a plot at all and is mostly just a string of random events that don't really amount to much.
Woolston sets up what could be a really interesting and meaningful dystopia, but she lets it all build up to nothing.


I didn't enjoy this book at all, The plot was lacking, in that there was basically no plot, There was no character development or depth displayed at any point in the entire novel, There was entirely too much time spent on building a world that is entirely too similar to our own world to necessitate spending the entire book building the world and then doing nothing with it.


We learn about AllMART and see some of their evil practices but we don't ever see Zoe working against this or trying to make any change to her world.
She just stays in the same situation, same state, without any change for the whole book, There was no motivation for me to actually read anything in this book except for the mistaken hope that the book would actually start to have a plot.


I can't say much beyond that because there isn't much more to comment on, This was hardly a book, it didn't have a plot at all, "Wanting is only human. Humans are only wants. My purpose is to see tiny seeds of wanting that I can magnify and satisfy, Then, because I am human too, I will want stuff, The cycle is so beautiful, I will belong. "

I love this quote from the book, It is such an amazing read, While the Earth within this book seems uneasily like sitelinkWallE, it lacks that movies sense of wonder and hope.
Its firmly rooted on an earth that seems to be sinking into economic depression, dulleyed apathy and rampant consumerism that pushes goods on patrons even as it sends its employees into everspiraling debt.


Zoë isnt much of a protagonist, She doesnt seem to have much agency, even after she removes a moodcontrolling nodule behind her ear, She doesnt lead a revolution or provide hope to her makcshift family, She simply goes with the flow much of the time, getting into a car with a stranger named Timmer and then allowing him access to her home, her shower and her fridge.


Timmer doesnt truly appeal either, For one thing, Zoë never describes what he looks like, The other characters get physical descriptions but not this guy, When Timmer keeps talking about his friend Raoul, I suspect trickery, The mysterious Raoul is much mentioned but never seen, Timmer also tells him how Raoul warned him to look out for people like Timmer was: the weak and the powerless.
He says this to Zoës face and she doesnt even get annoyed by it, Ouch.

Zoë refuses to care for an infant and she willingly goes into a desertlike scenario with the poor, muteer, a sad boy who cant take care of himself.
Its a miserable ending and you cant see how they can survive without real food or even running water, But this is given as being somehow a positive resolution to this shabby life, Sorry but I just cant see it, .