Tom Isbell (1) (1957–)

Just when I thought I was over Dystopian books, I ran into this little gem. After the big war, Book is being brought up in a camp where he thinks he's being trained to be a soldier. That is, until he meets Cat and finds out that LT stands for Less Than and he and his buddies are really being raised as prey.

When Book and his friends escape, they join up with some females from a camp who are being used as guinea pigs by The Republic. This book is action-packed and loaded with twists. I do have show more to say that Hope's character annoyed the heck out of me but I enjoyed the book anyway. show less

The Prey by Tom Isbell is a post-apocalyptic story about a group of boys and girls who are being raised in settlement camps. It’s twenty years after the war that changed American forever. The boys find out that when they turn sixteen they will be used as prey for the amusement of hunters while the girls, all sets of twins, are being forced to take part in medical experiments. By the time they escape, the girls have all lost their twin. These kids with only a slim chance of survival search show more for a rumored territory where they could be free. As they are tracked by government soldiers called brownshirts and sadistic hunters, they only have themselves and each other to rely upon.

I have seen a lot of really bad reviews for this book, many write it off as a cheap Hunger Games/Maze Runner rip off and I would say that is a fair assessment. But I really enjoyed both those books so I guess it’s no surprise that I actually found this a fun read. I do love my “survivor” books and this one, although stretching credibility a great deal, was satisfactory in that aspect. Unfortunately, the world-building and many characters lacked development which made it difficult to understand the whys and wherefores behind the premise of the book.

So although I won’t recommend this book as a “must-read”, I do intend to follow up with the next book in the trilogy at some point. show less

I'm so done with dystopians, you guys. I just... I don't like them anymore. So nothing against this book in particular, but BLARGH I'm sick of reading the same story over and over and over. That said, I think some of our teens will love this. It's got multiple character perspectives, plenty of driving action, hints of mysterious conspiracy dropped throughout, and a fair amount of creepy/gross violence. The "doctor" who performs experiments on some of the kids is SO AWFUL. Give this to kids show more who want something that's more about the action and less about the world-building.

Also, I've also noticed this book got lots of bad reviews for its language/writing style, but I actually had zero issue with that. I was kind of surprised to see those reviews, because I thought the writing was fine. Nothing special, perhaps, but serviceable and didn't detract from the story at all for me. show less

This book was really more of a two and a half stars.

I don't know why, but stories like this, ones of people trapped in awful places in post-apocalyptic settings really appeal to me. This particular one was way less gripping than many others I have read, though not terrible by any means.

There were a few things about the story/writing that bothered me great deal, a big one being the god damned insta-love crap between Book and Hope. They said like two words to each other and all of a sudden show more they couldn't stop thinking of the other and were pining after each other.

A couple of scenes involving the above mentioned characters seemed incredibly out of place, especially the one where Book and Hope were trapped in the cave in and decided to lay down and take a nap pressed against each other rather than dig their way out.

The ending was a load of crap too. They got all the way to apparent freedom and then were just like "well, gotta go back now to get the others!" Idk why they couldn't have just rested for even a short while and potentially gathered up townspeople to help them.

I will not be continuing this series. show less