2084 by Mason Engel: Review

My before reading ideas and notes:

So first of all I should start by saying I bought this book as it did come up as a suggestion from Amazon to read so I downloaded it to my kindle and once I started reading I found it so interesting I couldn't put it down. I didn't want to read the blurb for this book as I didn't want to ruin the plot for myself, as sometimes book descriptions can give you insight into the outcome of the book before you finish it. 

Initially, due to the title my first thought was that this was to be a futuristic take on 1984 by George Orwell but due to the book cover this would be instead control with a focus on vision. (For that part I was right). I didn't want to read the blurb for this book as I didn't want to ruin the plot for myself, as sometimes book descriptions can give you insight into the outcome of the book before you finish it. 

The book comes under Scifi and Fantasy and if your some one who enjoys that genre I think it's definitely worth a read as it is a free download for Kindle. The book is written from a third-person omniscient narrator; for me this was a bonus as I prefer books that don't have the bias of first person pov's, but have a voice that can give me, the reader, facts as they are in the no novel. 

SPOLIERS AHEAD:

I don't want to go into the entire plot of the book as I don't want to influence your expectation of the novel if you choose to read it after checking out my blog. However, in a quick summary the novel starts with a teenage boy named Vincent who could be seen as a 'mental-dissenter' to the corporation 'Newsight'; which to me worked throughout the novel in a similar way to BigBrother in 1984 through the fact that they do control everyday life in both the seclusions and cities mentioned in the novel. This is done through the production of 'lenses' that the corporation can watch everything an individual does and with the help of the false insurgency 'The Order' Vincent and his friend Jessica are paired throughout the novel as dissenting from Newsight and its insidious regime over civilians. For me as a reader, I found the idea of two teenagers attempting to overthrow an authoritarian corporation was a bit far fetched for me as a novel I found believable; regardless I still wanted to get to the end. When it comes to novels with controlling governments or corporations, I much more prefer an ending that doesn't end well- mainly because I don't think it would; again going back to 1984, I think that worked as a novel because its inferred that there was no happy ending. At first I honestly thought that is what we were going to get the type of ending as Vincent learns that the 'The Order' is actually a false insurgent force created by Newsight themselves (it was quite prevalent from early on). Vincent is then imprisoned by Newsight until he learns to love the system- up to this point I thought the ending was ticking off my boxes; however, at the very end it is hinted that there is an insurgent force after all and is working to get Vincent out of the control of Newsight. I honestly think this ruined the ending, it would have been perfectly sufficient for Vincent to get end up loving Newsight and no one breaking from the system; in my totalitarian opinion anyway.

I would recommend this book as material to analyse; I didn't think it was something that particularly had any surprising moments or anything that I was enthralled by. However, I would say it works as a very good novel to write a comparative essay on with 1984 because I do think they have very similar messages and themes however, in my opinion I think 2084 is lacking in some areas as a successful novel. 

I'm going to leave the link for Amazon here so you can check it out: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B072C2VNG9/ref=oh_aui_d_asin_title_o04_?ie=UTF8&psc=1