Pawn, Aimée Carter [Review]

Title: Pawn

Series: The Blackcoat Rebellion, #1

Author: Aimée Carter

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Pages: 296

Format: Paperback

Source: ARC Provided by Publisher

Description:

For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country.

If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked—surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister’s niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter.

There’s only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered. The same one that got her killed…and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that’s not her own, she must decide which path to choose—and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she’s only beginning to understand.

Review:

Pawn was my very first Aimée Carter book—why it took me all this time to try this author is still something unknown to me—and despite my immense curiosity towards the story it is a fact that I didn’t really know what to expect… and what a great, shockingly good surprise this one turned out to be!

Dystopian novels have been growing on me for the past few months becoming one of my all-time favourite genres to read, and whenever I see a new release coming out I can’t quite resist the urge of at least taking a look. Pawn was one of those tempting cases—a gorgeous cover, an interesting storyline and the promise of a grand adventure were more than enough to catch my full attention.

Kitty Doe is an Extra—which means she’s a burden—and regardless of the possibilities that might reach her way once she takes the test that will determine her place in the society, she knows she’ll never be able to get a good enough score to grant her the stability and decent sense of living needed to build a safe future with Bengy, the boy she loves. So when the opportunity of going up a few numbers in the rank takes place, she’d be a fool not to accept it—the only problem relies on what she’ll have to give up in return in order to become part of the most powerful family in the country.

Oh dear goodness in heaven, this book still gives me the chills! There are simply no sufficient words to express how incredibly mesmerizing, and exhilarating, and refreshing this book truly is. Carter created a fabulous world of false hope and mischievous secrets, little imperfections that gradually start coming up during Kitty’s self discoveries. She is in deep, deep trouble, and it is quite amazing and exciting to ‘watch’ how Carter draws her main character’s lines of life through the dangerous fate of becoming a Hart. This story is twisted in so many and unimaginable ways that even for me is extremely complicated to put into words how fascinating this narrative can be to a dystopia’s fan. 

So many are the details that give life to Pawn—even the title is a key aspect of what this story hopes to portray. The society itself is interesting as Carter was seriously intelligent in the way she developed and structured the world building, but also the characters are a feature of great importance. Kitty is witty, and courageous, and fragile all at the same time, and that gives her the necessary depth for the reader to connect. The things she has to go through in order to conquer a very wanted freedom are unbelievable and the way she reacts to things, to the situations she is pushed to only make her even more special. In addition, even the secondary cast is graciously terrifying and often cruel. Figures like Knox, Daxton and Bengy shape what’s good and what’s bad in this thrilling narrative and it’s impossible not to care for them, even for the perverted, sick ones.

With no obvious love triangle­—which counts as a bonus for me—, no romantic relationship taking over the plot and a brutal and merciless place called Elsewhere in the horizon, Pawn is, without a doubt, a great read to dive right into. After turning the last page, I can only imagine the secrets and surprises kept in Captive, the second instalment in this trilogy. Uh, I can’t wait!

UK Cover

(Mira Ink)