theelderbooks's review
4.0
When I picked this book I thought I would be reading a dystopia similar to Divergent and some other dystopias. Even though it started that way, it became much more than this, very quickly.
In a world where people live in Plexes, huge complexes housing most of the population, going out is no longer necessary. Students learn through screens and adults work within the Plex. Jennifer is a perfect student, with top grades. Her goal is to get in the best universities and land a good job after graduating. Her girlfriend Melody is the opposite. She's a free spirit, who enjoys the outdated things that are books and poetry. When Melody meets Charles Winston, a former teacher who remembers how life used to be before the automatisation of the world, she brings Jennifer and a couple friends along for a spiritual journey that will stick with them forever.
As I said, I expected this books being about freeing oneself from the grasp of the screens, while the characters would be leading some grand revolution in the country. I was dead wrong. This is much more than this. This is about freeing your spirit, doing what you love and learning to share it with people you care about. The characters are leading a silent revolution to gain slivers of knowledge, through various processes, together, while the society always taught them they did not need anyone besides virtuals teachers. All in all, this is a very poetic story, which brought some peace and kindness to my heart. I'm simply a little confused about a storyline happening in the middle of the book which was kind of pointless to me, but other than that, I enjoyed the plot !
As for the characters, I mostly loved them, besides the main one... Jennifer is the one that evolves the most throughout the books, but I couldn't connect with her. However, I loved Jean Paul and Melody, who both moved me; Jean Paul with his desire to fit in, and Melody who wanted nothing more than to get out. Winston, the teacher was a great character, and I loved the ending Adam Knight gave him, even though he was a bit stereotyped and biased regarding the way education should be. Even Peter, last member of this little club pulled one of my heart strings.
Every one of those character has something special, a soul. The writing style for this book was surprisingly good, if sometimes dragging on, and I would definitely recommend it for dystopia and poetry/litterary books fans.
Thank you to NineStar Press and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review !
In a world where people live in Plexes, huge complexes housing most of the population, going out is no longer necessary. Students learn through screens and adults work within the Plex. Jennifer is a perfect student, with top grades. Her goal is to get in the best universities and land a good job after graduating. Her girlfriend Melody is the opposite. She's a free spirit, who enjoys the outdated things that are books and poetry. When Melody meets Charles Winston, a former teacher who remembers how life used to be before the automatisation of the world, she brings Jennifer and a couple friends along for a spiritual journey that will stick with them forever.
As I said, I expected this books being about freeing oneself from the grasp of the screens, while the characters would be leading some grand revolution in the country. I was dead wrong. This is much more than this. This is about freeing your spirit, doing what you love and learning to share it with people you care about. The characters are leading a silent revolution to gain slivers of knowledge, through various processes, together, while the society always taught them they did not need anyone besides virtuals teachers. All in all, this is a very poetic story, which brought some peace and kindness to my heart. I'm simply a little confused about a storyline happening in the middle of the book which was kind of pointless to me, but other than that, I enjoyed the plot !
As for the characters, I mostly loved them, besides the main one... Jennifer is the one that evolves the most throughout the books, but I couldn't connect with her. However, I loved Jean Paul and Melody, who both moved me; Jean Paul with his desire to fit in, and Melody who wanted nothing more than to get out. Winston, the teacher was a great character, and I loved the ending Adam Knight gave him, even though he was a bit stereotyped and biased regarding the way education should be. Even Peter, last member of this little club pulled one of my heart strings.
Every one of those character has something special, a soul. The writing style for this book was surprisingly good, if sometimes dragging on, and I would definitely recommend it for dystopia and poetry/litterary books fans.
Thank you to NineStar Press and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review !
jantine's review
5.0
I received a free copy through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
The best book is one that gets you thinking. One where a bad guy is not a bad guy, but someone who behaves in a way that is not always good for the protagonist. And who is the antagonist really, and who is the good guy?
Is it Charles, who plants dangerous ideas in the minds of young students, believing he will help them think freely? Does he really free them, or does he only add danger to their lives? Is it miss Barfield, who infiltrates and moulds the minds of young people? Is greed really all there is to her motives?
Reading this book, I realised my need to read more and differently. It has been too long since I read a book and thought about things like motives, deeper meanings, etc. I want to read more, more literature, more poetry. 'At the Trough' has rekindled my flame, and I want to thank Adam Knight for it.
The best book is one that gets you thinking. One where a bad guy is not a bad guy, but someone who behaves in a way that is not always good for the protagonist. And who is the antagonist really, and who is the good guy?
Is it Charles, who plants dangerous ideas in the minds of young students, believing he will help them think freely? Does he really free them, or does he only add danger to their lives? Is it miss Barfield, who infiltrates and moulds the minds of young people? Is greed really all there is to her motives?
Reading this book, I realised my need to read more and differently. It has been too long since I read a book and thought about things like motives, deeper meanings, etc. I want to read more, more literature, more poetry. 'At the Trough' has rekindled my flame, and I want to thank Adam Knight for it.
jameskemp's review
4.0
I was offered an ARC of At The Trough. It took a bit of getting into, partly because At The Trough swaps between several point of view characters, one per chapter. So it took 2-3 chapters for each character to properly hook me into the story. Once I'd got there though it kept me up until 2am on a work night!
At The Trough is a very dystopian near future. Close enough that you can see the join into the present. It's a plausible, if very dark, future. This is part of what made it compelling to me. It's like Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 in that regard. A warning for the present to avoid the future where we don't realise that we're all enslaved.
It's not for the faint hearted. There are some unpleasant events, one of the key characters commits suicide. Another considers it. There's an exploration of what we classify as mentally ill. How this is subjective rather than objective. The subject matter is breaking out of education, and the book does that too. It's a pretty realistic and we'll thought through world. There isn't really a happy ever after ending.
The writing was good, there were a couple of moments of real tension, where I waited for the trap to spring shut. There were moments of pathos, and some subtle telegraphing to the reader while keeping the character unaware.
What I was a little disappointed by was that more could have been made of the world. There were some inconsistencies or unexplained bits. The poorer US people have been captured by corporations, which was reasonable. It was clear that the richer Americans were still living outside the Plex systems. There was some contact with a character in Mexico, but nothing to suggest that the outside world worked differently.
Also the ending, while not being happy, was rather too cosy. I'm hoping that perhaps there's a sequel where the heroes go on to do something about the system.
At The Trough is a very dystopian near future. Close enough that you can see the join into the present. It's a plausible, if very dark, future. This is part of what made it compelling to me. It's like Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 in that regard. A warning for the present to avoid the future where we don't realise that we're all enslaved.
It's not for the faint hearted. There are some unpleasant events, one of the key characters commits suicide. Another considers it. There's an exploration of what we classify as mentally ill. How this is subjective rather than objective. The subject matter is breaking out of education, and the book does that too. It's a pretty realistic and we'll thought through world. There isn't really a happy ever after ending.
The writing was good, there were a couple of moments of real tension, where I waited for the trap to spring shut. There were moments of pathos, and some subtle telegraphing to the reader while keeping the character unaware.
What I was a little disappointed by was that more could have been made of the world. There were some inconsistencies or unexplained bits. The poorer US people have been captured by corporations, which was reasonable. It was clear that the richer Americans were still living outside the Plex systems. There was some contact with a character in Mexico, but nothing to suggest that the outside world worked differently.
Also the ending, while not being happy, was rather too cosy. I'm hoping that perhaps there's a sequel where the heroes go on to do something about the system.
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