Corinna Turner

It's a good thing this book was amazing, because twenty dollars is a lot to pay for a paperback. But one should be careful when one starts this book, lest one be unable to put it down when one should really be doing homework for college. This is one of the best books I've read all year.

I watched a video where a booktuber was ranting about the things that bug her, and one of those things she complained about was books being compared to The Hunger Games just because they're dystopian novels. I don't usually mind when people say that one book is 'like' another book, but I have to say that this book is not like The Hunger Games. Margo is nothing like Katniss (that's a good thing,) and this book has a great deal of focus around suppressed religion. If I had to say that it was 'like' another book I'd actually have to compare it more to [b: The First Principle|21423893|The First Principle|Marissa Shrock|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1395617245s/21423893.jpg|40733693]. Most dystopian novels either ignore religion (Hunger Games, Divergent, Legend, The Selection) or invent a random new one (Atlantia, Divergent) (Yes, Divergent is on both of those lists because there are brief mentions of the different factions religious principles, but then it pretty much ignores them). The First Principle and I Am Margaret both addressed the suppression of religion. To be honest, I feel like the world of The First Principle could be a forerunner of the I Am Margaret world. In The First Principle everyone is forced to use birth control, and if a girl gets pregnant while in school she is forced to abort the baby. In I Am Margaret everyone is forced to use birth control and, I assume forced to abort babies the government doesn't want (that wasn't the main focus of the story, so I'm not entirely clear on that one). They both have birth limits of two children, though in The First Principle you can pay a fortune to have more than two children. In I Am Margaret the entire world except for the Vatican and the continent of Africa is under similar oppressive governments, so the fact that The First Principle takes place in America and I Am Margaret occurs in England wouldn't interfere with my theory that I Am Margaret takes place in The First Principle's future. The only inconsistency is that the government of I Am Margaret still permits the use of paper and real books (even if they did force-plant trees) and The First Principle only permits electronic books and writing (well, the other problem is that The First Principle will hopefully have a sequel, but if it doesn't than it really could be how I imagined it.) In spite of my comparing the two books, they are really quite different, and, though I enjoyed The First Principle, I enjoyed I Am Margaret much more. I felt like I fit in to the audience that I Am Margaret is directed at more than The First Principle, what with I Am Margaret being told from the point of view of a Catholic Christian girl, and The First Principle being told by an atheist/agnostic who starts to consider becoming a (generic protestant) Christian. (I would still recommend The First Principle, just maybe not quote as enthusiastically as I Am Margaret.

I don't know if I'm an arrogant American or if it's because this is the first dystopian novel I've read not set in the US (or what used to be the US) but I was confused for a while until I figured out that the book was set in the UK (or what used to be the UK).

Margaret: Margo is strong, but vulnerable. She wants to do the right thing, but sometimes fear holds her back. Given her high principles I was rather surprised when she used words like 'bastard,' 'bitch,' and 'damn' but maybe those words aren't considered as bad in the UK as in the US? It's interesting that she considers Bane hotheaded, but the way that she addressed the Major was thoroughly incautious.

Bane: Bane is a confusing character. We meet him briefly at the beginning of the book, and during a couple of dangerous night time visits to Margo, but for the most part we get to know him only through, letters, flashbacks and Margo's descriptions. Margo's descriptions are fairly biased, and even though she is aware of many of his flaws, I still feel like she presents him, perhaps as better than he is. I liked his letters, which were very clever, but he did annoy me a bit in the flashbacks, and when he meets Margo at night. He's just so stubborn and prideful. Still he seems like a decent guy, so hopefully I'll like him better in the next book. And maybe he'll convert to Christianity.

Jonathan: I really, really like Jon. He's sweet, principled, protective, strong yet vulnerable and very, very Catholic. I really felt bad for him at the end of the book. Hopefully he won't dissolve into self-pity in the next book, because the ending chapter opened up that possibility and as a general rule characters who are immersed in self-pity aren't much fun to read about.

Jane has a lot of Character. I hope we get to know her better in the next two books because she has a lot of potential as a character. She's bitter, angry, fearful, hopeful and fearful of hope. I can't help but feel that there must be something more to her then just having been waiting her whole life to be taken away into the facility. What does it mean that she was unregistered? Did her parents have her while in school? Was she a third child? Or is it simply that you have to have a license to have children and your child will be murdered later in life if she is unregistered, even if you don't have any other children, and are registered as a couple, or whatnot. Another curious thing is all the crap the government gives about how you can only have kids with someone of your race, and of forced immigration of people to the place where their ancestors originally lived, how is Jane described as Asian? I hope there will be an explanation of that. At any rate, Jane was a very interesting character, and it would be nice to see more of her.

The other ReAssignees were mostly bland. Other than Jane, the only one we really got to know was Sarah. I feel like some of them really could have been fleshed out a bit more, or at least Rebecca and Caroline since they played a slightly bigger part in chapter 26.

We really only got to know the two priests through flashbacks. They're both brave, stubborn and capable. I do hope we get to know Father Mark better, and I sort of hope that we get to meet Margo's brother. I think it would be nice if we got to see Margo and Jon's parents as well. Especially Jon's parents because we haven't met them even in flashbacks, and it would be rather nice to learn how they, who obviously care very deeply about Jon, dealt with knowing that the government would want to kill him as soon as he got old enough.

Margo and Jon made their confirmations when they were fifteen. That's how old when I was when I made mine. Jon and Margo were both told that confirmation was the decision to remain in the Church, and treated confirmation as such. This is also the way that it was explained to me as well. Now however our current bishop is changing the age of confirmation to be in 3rd grade at the same time as First Communion, returning the order of sacraments to how it was originally, a very long time ago. The last few weeks the Bishop had asked that the homilies address this change, and, as such, the way that I've heard it explained lately is that the main purpose of confirmation is to give the receiver the Holy Spirit and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the reason why they're lowering the age is because they believe that children need the Gifts of the Holy Spirit at a much younger age these days. I'm still pretty torn about how I feel about the age change. I do wonder if the world came to such a horrible time as is described in I Am Margaret, if they would think it best to treat Confirmation as the choice to remain in the Church (and in doing so risk your life because the government hates religion) or if it would be treated as my current bishop is treating it; the giving of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (and therefore the sooner the better.)

I also wonder which saints Margaret and Jon chose as the confirmation names. Then again I Am Margaret takes place who knows how far in the future, so maybe they would choose saints who haven't lived yet.

The writing style was very good. Every now and then in the early chapters I would come upon a sentence that I had to reread, but as the book went on that stopped happening. I'm not sure if I settled into the writing style and started understanding the slightly confusing sentences better, or if the later chapters were proof-read more thoroughly.

I'm squeamish, and chapter 6 bothered me a bit, but not as much as chapters 27 and 28. Those ones actually made me feel sick. Especially chapter 28. Those were my least favorite parts. At least I didn't faint though.

My favorite part was when Bane and Father Mark sent the consecrated Eucharist over the wall, and the moment when Margo thanked them for it "I ought to thank the chef and the waiter."

Now I really need the second book. I'm trying to decide if I should get both book 2 and book 3 at the same time, or if I should get book 3 and hope that book comes out in the US version by the time I finish book 2, because the only version of 3 on Amazon is the UK version, which means my covers wouldn't match. I guess I'll have to decide...… (mais)

Just! No! I can't! Why? HOW COULD IT END LIKE THAT?

Why do I keep thinking every series I start is going to be a trilogy? (Though the fact that the book was called 'Liberation' also led to my belief that it was the last book in the series. How was I to know that Liberation referred to the rescuing or liberating of ReAssignees, rather than the liberation of the oppressed world?) When is the fourth book coming out? The sneak peek at the end of book three said that it was coming out in November, 2015, but it is almost December of 2015, and even if it comes out before the end of the month, when will it come out in the US?

This book took me longer to read than it should have. I think it was because of school, and homework, and being overwhelmed by my excitement with the story, and upset by the tragedy.

If I learned one thing about writing from Harry Potter, it's that in order to make a story really resonate with a reader, to make us realize how much defeating the evil costs the main characters, it's that you have to kill at least one character who the readers are very attached to. (J.K. Rowling killed a whole bunch of characters I was really attached to.) Corinna Turner has gotten a good start on that with this book, and for all that I just expressed about how authors need to do this, I'm still not very happy about it. Okay, so Father Mark didn't make me cry the way Dobby and Fred Weasley did, it was more like my response to Sirius Black (stop reading the book in disbelieving disgust at two o'clock in the morning, only to be irresistibly drawn back into the story in the morning). I was pounding the floor in distress, asking how 'they' (the EuroGov or the author) could do that. I am not happy about Doms's death either, though my upset with that was upstaged by Margo's upset with Bane's capture. I really, really wanted to see Doms and Juwan again. I still hope we will see Juwan again, and see how he is recovering from his heartbreak over Doms.

I still hope we can see Jane again, she was such an interesting character.

Although I was happy to get to know Kyle better, the amount of fights he got in with Margo were a bit disappointing. Although most of the fights were him trying to protect Margo, giving us a delightfully strong idea of how much he cares about Margo, I was still a bit disappointed that so much of there interaction was fighting.

Eduardo is great in this book. In some ways he is (probably unintended) comic relief. He's a bit like Ron Weasley in his matter-of-fact insensitivity, and it was that characteristic of Ron that led to a lot of the funny parts in Harry Potter. I think Pope Cornelius is a foil for Eduardo.

I'm still waiting on meeting Jon's and Margo's parents. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to meet Margo's parents at all. I hope Bane has an opportunity to see his parents again. To forgive them if he can.

Sister Krayj (how is that pronounced, Help!) and Unicorn were interesting characters. Sister Krayj seems like a feminist (a healthy feminist, not so over the top that she is sexist against men.) She's strong, capable and kind. Unicorn was sweet and brave. Hopefully we'll see more of these two in the next book.

Margo, Bane and Jon are mostly unchanged. Margo had some character growth, when she made the decision to stop coming on the liberations. Jon had some character growth somewhere in the book that I can't put my finger on, stopping the bitterness and self-pity that I was so afraid would overwhelm his character. I'm still hoping he gets a chance to be happy. Bane grew as mostly at the end I think. It's quite a difference to go from pretending to betray people to save your life (even if you're planning on loosing the people sent to tail you to find the people you pretended to betray) to giving up your life to save them. If it weren't for Margo's realization that the only reason he'd given himself up was to get on the news and be the spark that set the EuroBloc on fire, then I would have thought it was just him being his usual stupid self, crazy with guilt, trying to be brave, but just hurting Margo. But because Margo did realize that he was deliberately giving a speech to lead to the protests in the squares across Europe, I think that he may have had more character growth than either Jon or Margo.

If book four is supposed to be the final volume, how is the rest of the world going to be freed? They've gotten a decent start on Europe, but Africa is the only free state, so they not only have to bring down the EuroGov, but the AmeriGov (north and south,) the AsiaGov, AustraliGov, and the oppressive governments of any other large islands. I suppose the fall of the EuroGov could be catalyst enough to lead to the fall of the dictatorships on the other countries, but I'm still not sure that all of those places can be freed in just one book. At least the sneak peek has let us know we're finally going to get to see 'the mysterious benefactor' again.

I need book four now.… (mais)