Tour, GIVEAWAY, and (eventual) Book Review! — Join me in the world of “Omni”

Hullo, hullo readers! Welcome to my stop for Omni (Book 1 of the Omni Duology)!

Be sure to scroll down and check out my review (eventually up there…) as well as enter the GIVEAWAY for a $20 GC, and 2 e-copies of Vivid!

Title: Omni (Book 1 of the Omni Duology)
Author: Andrea Murray
Publisher: Booktrope
Publication Date: April 28, 2015
Genre: Young Adult, Sci-Fi
Amazon ~ Barnes & Nobles ~ iTunes ~ Goodreads

They will risk everything, even challenging the all-seeing eye of the Omni government. But will the prize be worth the cost?

Seventeen-year-old Pierce is a Drudge, the lowest social stratum in society.  For over two years, he’s hoped—prayed—that his upcoming aptitude test will finally free him from his virtual slavery and give him a chance at a better existence.  When he rescues Harmony, an Artist and member of the most successful stratum, his life takes an unbelievable twist.

With his gallant act and good looks, he becomes a media sensation.  Every stratum in society seeks his membership for their publicity, but as he becomes closer to Harmony, Pierce realizes what fame in Omni is truly like. His choices will not only affect him but Harmony as well. The life Pierce thought he wanted may not be worth the cost to either of them.

REVIEW & THOUGHTS

*ADDED IN: 5/21/15*

Rating: 3 Stars

Alright. So the premise was great. Characters, interesting enough (although too frustratingly perfect at times). Pace, a bit fast and disjointed at times, but still manageable. Romance… eh, I couldn’t care, but it was decent enough. So what happened?

I got further into the story, that’s what happened.

I’m not really satisfied with labeling this one bad, because it wasn’t… but it wasn’t as good as it should have been from how it started off. What drew me in from the very beginning was the prologue which thrusts us into a desperate situation immediately and has us wondering, “What’s going on? What’s happening? How did it get like this?” But quickly thereafter everything just… plummets. I wanted Omni to be a little less… LESS of what it ended up being.

Omni is basically a dystopian re-imagining of the a classic Greek mythos: the story of Paris and Helen – which, all-in-all sounds pretty damned cool. Except it turned into what I would call a hot mess waay too quickly. Don’t get me wrong, there were some good points to it! I loved the relationship between Hale and Pierce, but there was far too much melodrama (almost like a bad soap opera) in the rest of the book to keep me interested, and then coupled with a pace that didn’t really allow for any character development or growth, plus a rather generic authoritarian-government-in-control-of-everyone’s-lives scenario didn’t help the mix at all.

What saved it from being a complete washout for me was HALE (Oh gods, he’s awesome) and that ending which suddenly brought us back to why this book should have been good. It leaves you wanting the next one – even after the flaws you just suffered through in the last two-hundred pages – and that’s how I feel after finishing it.

This book fits these 2015 Reading Challenges:

2015 GoodReads Reading Challenge

You Read How Many Books?

52 Books in 52 Weeks

Read A Million Pages

105 Reading Challenge (Categories: 1, 4, 10)

2015 New To You Reading Challenge (New Series & New Author To Me)

This book was provided for free in exchange for an honest review. In no way does it affect my rating or review.

Author Bio:

Andrea Murray has been teaching English for longer than most of her students have been alive. She has taught everything from elementary reading groups to concurrent credit classes. She is currently teaching junior high language arts. She has a BSE and an MA in English. She lives in a very small town in Arkansas with her husband of nineteen years and their two children. In addition to teaching, she also blogs on Chick Lit Plus, writes young adult fiction, and recently completed her fourth novel, Omni, a YA dystopian based on the story of Paris and Helen. Andrea has also written The Vivid Trilogy, a YA paranormal romance. When she isn’t doing that, she’s probably reading or watching bad B movies.

Author Links:

Website || Goodreads || Amazon || Facebook || Twitter

Giveaway

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This tour was organized by Good Tales Book Tours