Blog Tour: ARC Review: Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

Title: Article 5 (Article 5 #1)
Author: Kristen Simmons
Pages: 362 pages
Format acquired: Paperback (ARC)
Publisher: Tor Teen
Publication date: January 21st' 2012
Source: Gifted (Thanks, Kai!)
Buy the book: Amazon / Book Depository

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned.

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back.

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different.

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow.

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings—the only boy Ember has ever loved.

(Image and summary from Goodreads)

Review:

Article 5 had a lot of self-hate, other people-hate, self-pity and a boatload of thrilling and suspenseful action. Article 5 is set in a Dystopic world wherein there are set rule, the Articles, being implemented by the Federal Bureau of Reformation (FBR) or as everyone, besides the actual FBR, likes to call them: the Moral Militia (MM.) These Articles, when disobeyed or not complied to, will bring you a whole world of pain, anguish and ultimately, death. The thing with these Articles is that it ranges to simplest and most inane things to extremely extreme things, like from clothes to your religion and things like that. There are a lot of social issues that can be found in this book, there's the case of sexism and others. It's like there's no progress in this society at all and that was very difficult to read about. Obviously these Articles are doing nothing but harm to the people and the MMs (Hoho) are nothing but lackeys following the government's instructions. And they're bullies. Big, big bullies with guns. Croo.

I honestly didn't know what to expect from Article 5 because the summary doesn't really give anything away. I knew that shocking things would happen, but I also knew that there would be predictable moments as well. There were times wherein I just wanted to go into the book and smack everyone in the book and it end it all. I was frustrated most of the time and there really wasn't any specific mood set for the book except for gloom and doom, both pretty obvious from the events that will and have transpired in the book. I don't even know if I like Ember, it's not that she's a bad character per se but it's because I just get this irritated feeling whenever I read about her. She's hot one second and cold the next, I really don't know what to feel about her. But okay, here's a backstory of our lost yet guided heroine:

Ember has her life pretty much taken away when the MM decides to arrest her mother for the breach of Article 5 which has something to do about children born out of wedlock (which is absolutely ridiculous.) And as if fate wanted to make everything worse, Ember's former lover, Chase, was one of the MM officers who arrested her and her. Which left a sad and heartbroken Ember. She was then taken to reformatory school wherein she goes through a whole lot of really crappy stuff (she gets beaten...ish) but she also manages to escape (not telling you how either.) And the rest of the book is her running away and trying to hide from the MM with Chase, the only guy she's ever loved. A lot of the self-hate, other people-hate and self-pity came from Ember herself. She's this big hormonal and emotional teen who doesn't really know what to do with all these feelings. She knows that finding her mother is important but that also isn't stopping her from reminiscing about all her happy memories with Chase even though she feels like he's now a stranger to her. Because right from the get-go you see that Chase comes back from FBR training and whatever hardened and changed. The man who came back isn't the boy she fell hopelessly in love with and Ember couldn't handle that. And add on to the fact that her mom is a disheveled mess that Ember always has to keep worrying about. I felt bad for Ember and the things she had to go through and the responsibility she had to carry.

Ember's flashbacks on her happy times with Chase gave the book a slightly less edgy feel to it. It was soft and no longer serrated because that's all you'll ever feel when you read the book. While the flashbacks may have been filled with melancholy, they were also filled with sweetness and nostalgia as well. I looked forward to these moments because they left me all sad but tingly. I was glad that Kristen Simmons did not really give that big of an emphasis t oArticle 5's romantic aspect because it certainly would've affected the whole book's structure. I liked the way she managed to just insert bits and pieces that were appropriate enough for the book.

I wouldn't say that this was the worst or best Dystopian book I've because it was honestly just "meh" for me. I expected a lot more from it because of the hype but I was slightly disappointed when I got to through more than halfway through the book and nothing really exciting was happening. And I was left wondering with this question when I finished reading it: Who is their enemy? I understand that they plan to go against the FBR but will they try to take down the whole bureau or do they plan to assassinate the president or something. I hope that this question will be answered in Breaking Point, its sequel. Article 5 is definitely an entertaining read and I'd recommend this to people who are looking for a thrill because the action in this book is explosive and it was really cool. I hope that those who try Article 5 will like it because it's honestly not a terrible book, it's just that it's not for me but there may be other people who likes this type of books.

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