2.5
Estoy entre:
Kid es idiota. Ari es idiota. Micky es idiota. TODOS SON IDIOTAS.
Y: (SPOILER)
Oh, que guay, mejores amigos in love. Alucinante. Es una novedad. Mejores amigas que se dejan de lado porque la super sociedad las ha fastidiado. Hala, una aplicacion super chach... AH, no, que es Twitter. Alucinante trama, no me has aclarado nada, no me has explicado nada. NADAAAAAAAAAAA.

Creo que mejor no elijo y me quedo con las dos. ( )

You know what’s really needed in order for a Dystopian novel such as this one to succeed? Something has to be at stake, preferably something beyond shallow happiness. And I’m not even sure that was at stake in The Unidentified. This book just fell flat for me. The pace was all right, but the plot didn’t capture me and I felt a heart was missing from this book. Even after finishing, I could barely tell you what happened. Perhaps forgettable is a good word.

The Unidentified group is just sorta. . . there. I mean, the story is named after them, but Kid spends most of her time doing normal teenage things in the game. I think this was for the point of world-building, but it got tiring after a while. All the trademarks and the speech patterns may have lended themselves to a touch of authenticity, but they were also quite annoying after the first twenty pages. If I never see the word Intouch again, it will be too soon. Kid herself is just a pretty bland character, and I think that’s a good way to describe the book on the whole.

The premise is interesting, but the way the world is set up seems so far-fetched to me. Now, it takes a lot for me to say that about Dystopian stories. I didn’t say that about Divergent when many people did, or The Hunger Games, or even The Maze Runner. Normally, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for quite a while. It doesn’t take much to make me happy in way of world-building. It’s honestly not normally that important to me– I’d rather focus on things like plot or characterization. However, in The Unidentified, I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief for that long. The entire point of schools is market research? Sponsorship? I just couldn’t buy it.

The ending to this book was also quite unsatisfactory. Things are changed ( a little bit), a celebration occurs, and then. . . nothing. The point of kids coming together is to throw off the whole idea of popularity and sponsorship, but it all just seemed so shallow. There was precious little at stake, so the “triumphant” ending just seemed kind of silly.

I started writing this review thinking this would be a 2 star book, but the more I write, the more I realized I didn’t like The Unidentified, mainly because the point and premise all seemed shallow. I felt the book could have gone a lot deeper with its theme of marketing, advertisement, and how it effects teenagers. Instead, what happens it an artificial story where I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the characters or their eventual fates.

Final Impression: The Unidentified had an unique and engaging premise, but failed to deliver in the actual story. I found the entire reading experience rather bland, and have to say I was not a fan. I wished the themes and story had been handled with more depth and less artificiality, much like what the book seems to be trying to fight against. 1/5 stars.
( )

It reminded me of Extras (the 4th book in the uglies trilogy) and in a weird way also the hunger games.

I didnt exactly hate it, except for the ending. I got the feeling that the author just wanted to be done with it and skipped to the ending.

( )

Read my full review at: http://bourg.info/2013/12/22/unidentified-rae-mariz/

What I found the best part of the book had to be the detailed view of the future, which included awesome gadgets (I would totally buy a “heartthrob”.) I also liked how this book lead me to think of things that teens deal with in a different way. The book had an underlying message that kept coming up, a message where in a world where teens had everything they could want in “The Game” outside of it they were really banned from society and lacked any kind of freedom. ”The Game” itself was just an illusion of freedom.
I’m not sure why Mariz decided to look at this point of teenage freedoms. I wonder if it came from a lack of freedom when she was a teenager or if she feels that the teens of today and tomorrow will have less freedoms than those of us in Generations X and Y. The book goes into detail how teens are constantly monitored by GPS and how they are banned from most stores and from congregating outside of “The Game.” Whether Mariz’s future will in some form come to pass or not, “The Unidentified” will definitely get teens and adults thinking and talking about what the future may hold. ( )

Solid critique of the way the conditions of late Capitalism affect young adults, and an interesting suggestion for how to get beyond that situation. A very nice reworking of Anderson's "Feed" without the cyberpunk trappings. Recommended. ( )