Scorched

I really liked the way this story began. I was drawn into the main character's struggle to survive on the streets with nothing, and to slowly better her life when the opportunity presents. After she gets a job, the pace picks up. Her life seems to be getting better, and she starts to develop a relationship with her boss, but at the same time, people she doesn't recognize are looking for her, and they aren't friendly. It all happens too fast. In order for the ending to be believable, you have to buy that the person the main character has become closest to would be willing to give up everything to help her, even at risk of his own life, but they actually haven't known each other for very long, and had only started getting to know each other on a personal level. It all ends with the revelation of who the main character is and how she found herself in this situation, which is fairly unimaginative and spelled out for us by her opponent in such detail that there isn't much sense of mystery left. I may or may not read the next book in the series at some point.

An intriguing book, well written and edited. The story kept me hooked all the way from where Missy wakes, barely clothed in an alley in a dystopian future and gradually starts to assert herself in the dangerous underbelly of the new society, to the point where she starts to realise who she is and take control of her life.
The world she discovers is described vividly, and you become part of it, sharing in the bewilderment of the heroine who has lost her memory and is struggling to recover from a mysterious wound - not easy in the filth of the environment she is exploring.
She eventually starts to make headway, and things improve when she remembers her name is Kat, as part of her memory returns. She also discovers she has certain mental powers, which subconsciously get her out of an uncomfortable situation, and give her a way forward.
This would have been a solid 5 star review, but for the ending. The last chapter did explain a load of the questions in my head, but it was as though the author needed to rush everything through at that point in a confusing battle scene that didn't do the previous fight incidents any justice. The book should have been longer to tease out the conclusion, and shorter, removing some of the incidents at the mine, say, which are there to demonstrate Kat's newly discovered powers.
Would I recommend it? Most certainly, but the ending spoiled it a bit for me.

Good book

(no rating)
Good book. Like the main character