This novel steals so many ideas from Alex Proyas' Dark City that it almost reads as fan fiction. ( )

Groundhog’s Day meets Alien Under the Dome.
Reviewed @ My Shelf Confessions

Life on the Preservation wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. Now that is both true and not true in a sense. It was exactly what the book description said: One guy stuck in a domed city, while the outside world is mostly nothing but a post apocalyptic wasteland. That is what it was but that is not what the story was at it’s core. I think this was about self preservation and finding the reasons to keep going every day.

Fair warning, this isn't really a spoiler because you learn about it pretty much in the very beginning of the book but there are a few sex scenes in Life on the Preservation, and statutory rape. Words are not minced when it comes to descriptions of sexual abuse. It’s by no means over the top but it isn’t glossed over either, so if you don’t want to read about this type of content then this may not be for you.

I was so confused early on because I didn’t know what character to really latch onto. The first 50 pages kept jumping back and forth from a handful of characters that I found it extremely difficult to connect. I was so annoyed! Finally about 150 in I figured I knew who the main players were. After that things started to make sense.

I do wish things were clearer early on about the two alien races. How he could have accomplished this I’m not sure but I just feel it could have been better done.

Things I liked:

- If you have ever watched Groundhog’s Day with Bill Murray – then that is what you can expect. Except there is none if the humor.

- The concept! I really like the whole trapped in a dome thing, We’ve seen it done before but this puts an entirely different twist on it. The word ‘Preservation’ in the title should give you a clue as to what the domed city is as compared to the rest of the outside world that is dying.

- The stark reality of various scenes and situations. Skillingstead doesn’t pull his punches. It was both refreshing and uncomfortable.

- This could be both something I did and did not like, it was just something that was: Ian and Kylie both have some fucked up pasts. While I sympathized with Ian, often I wanted to bitch slap Kylie for her dumbshit-itis moments. Though I have to admit there were a few times that I found her entertaining.

“She thought: I love him. Like telling herself something and hoping she believed it.”

I get that it was probably the point for me to find her tiresome. But I’d it’s one thing I can’t stand it’s being constantly annoyed by a character. There was an extreme amount of character development and growth over the course of Life on the Preservation. I wouldn’t be lying though if I told you Kylie still continued to annoy me even all the way up to the last page.

I was unexpectedly surprised by how satisfied I was with the ending. Much of the reading experience was depressing but then all of a sudden at the end it was as if I was given a nice piece of cake to eat.

*Copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All opinions are completely my own.* ( )