Thursday, January 19, 2012

Review of XVI

My review of XVI by Julia Karr is based on a paperback copy of the book that I purchased for myself. The following review is my honest opinion of the work.

Goodreads Summary: "Every girl gets one.
An XVI tattoo on the wrist--sixteen.


Some girls can't wait to be sixteen, to be legal. Nina is not one of them. Even though she has no choice in the matter, she knows that so long as her life continues as normal, everything will be okay.

Then, with one brutal strike, Nina's normal is shattered; and she discovers that nothing that she believed about her life is true. But there's one boy who can help--and he just may hold the key to her past.

But with the line between attraction and danger as thin as a whisper, one thing is for sure...

For Nina, turning sixteen promises to be anything but sweet.
"

The first time that I picked this book up it was before Typing Tiara. I was instantly drawn to the cover of the book when I saw it on top of the stacks at Barnes and Noble and as soon as I read the summary I knew that there was no way I was going to leave the store without it. I decided to review it now because it was a book I truly enjoyed and it doesn't seem to be getting nearly enough buzz, especially with it's sequel Truth coming out in mere weeks. Less than that!

I love me some kick butt heroines, we all do. The kind that seem almost fearless when they are taking down the government or even if they have fears they just bulldoze through them for the greater good. These heroines are amazing. But you know what? We're not all like that. We would love to imagine we would be the ones that would take a stand against the governments and bad guys in this dystopians but in all honesty most of us wouldn't. We're the average people. The normal ones. Nina is such a heroine. She wants to do the right thing, she wants to take a stand but she is just a sixteen year old girl. She seems real to me in that I can understand her, I share her motivations and could see myself following in her footsteps if the same thing were to happen to me. I can relate to her completely.

I'm a huge fan of dystopians, I devour them as soon as I can get my little eager hands on them. I'm not too particular about which ones I read, I'll give any and all types a shot, but I do have a type I prefer. The ones I feel we're on our way to right now, at this very moment. The ones where the warning signs are already there. The ones where you can see that we are only a hop, skip and a jump away from ending up in the possibly not so fictional world. For me, XVI is one of these reads.

XVI is all about the sex-teens. Yes, you read that right. Not sixteens but SEX-teens. When a girl turns sixteen she gets XVI tattooed on her wrist and from there on out she can have sex; guys will check girls' wrists to see if they have this tattoo and if they do then they are fair game. That's bad enough, right? It gets worse. Girls are practically trained to be sex-teens. What this means is that the media force-feeds them vids telling them how to flirt, how to dress sexy, and how to make a guy want you...all of this fed to them from a young age. Girls should want to be sex-teens, it's the pinnacle of their existence. This is what their media tells them. It's all about sex. All girls should focus on is how to be ditzy, slutty-dress sex-teens that guys will want. Sound familiar? If not than you are living under a rock. We already live in a version of this world where girls, from a young age, are turned into sexual objects by the media. Dress this way, act this way, this is what guys want. XVI showcases what could happen if this isn't stopped and soon. It has a powerful message. I'm giving XVI by Julia Karr a five out of five stars review.

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