A review by charlottejones952
Riot by Sarah Mussi

3.0

This overpopulation storyline is something that I have never read before so I was really intrigued to pick this one up. At 352 pages it is a really quick read and fits into the dystopian genre even though it isn’t set too far in the future.

There were a few things that originally annoyed me about this book when I first started reading it. There were a few Americanisms, such as ‘mall’, that were included even though it is set in London and Tia, the female protagonist, is slightly irritating throughout due to her conflicting thoughts on some subjects, but I could look past this because of the good points that this book contains.

The writing style is made up of quite choppy sentences, which I usually don’t like, but in this book I think it worked really well. The short sentences really add to the pace of the book and make it a fast paced read.

The action starts right from the first page and carries on throughout the entire book. Although the plot was exciting and a lot more brutal than I thought it would be, with this being a Young Adult book, I did feel like it was a little too predictable at points though I still did enjoy some of the unexpected twists and turns.

The villain in this book was so scary to me because he was so realistic. I won’t say who that character was because I don’t want to spoil anything but I will say that I found him scary and I was satisfied with the way the book ended, despite the almost out of place romance.

I wouldn’t say that this is a perfect dystopian by any means but I think the way that this didn’t have any fantasy/sci-fi elements, unlike a lot of dystopians, really worked in Riot‘s favour as it made it more realistic and made it feel as though this kind of thing could actually happen in a way.

Overall I would recommend this is you want a fast-paced dystopian read that is very much based in reality.