Simone Pond

The City Center by Simone Pond is in the year 2310 where the elite have desecrated 90% of the population and have built this world of perfect people who live in the City Center of Los Angeles in an enclosed “city” away from the outsiders. Every 18 years the Royal Court is retired and replaced by a new group of young Successor Candidates, each of which competes in a series of competitions to determine which role they will play in the new Court. At age 36, retired citizens are sent to show more Ret-Hav (Retirement Haven), an island where they will live out their lives in pampered luxury. Ava Rhodes is one of the Successor Candidates and she is paired with James who doesn’t really like Ava and she doesn’t think she will be able to live with him for 18 years.

Days before graduation day, while Ava is visiting her friend Delilah who lives in the lower ranking citizec, an alarm goes off and Ava meets outsider Joseph who gives her a book to read, a journal by Lillian from when the desecration happened. Chief Morray who is the leader and creator spread lies that Joseph has attacked and killed seven people and held hostages when in fact he and Ava have escaped to the outside world.

Several people are comparing this to the Hunger Games but I disagree. They aren’t going into battle to the death. They are peacefully replacing the current royal court and everyone is living peacefully without much feeling. This is an interesting take on what is happening in society with all the increase in violence around the world, greed, selfishness, and politicians who don’t listen to their constituents and seem to not know how to play fair instead of being school yard bullies. I really enjoy dystopian stories and I like the take on this one. The manipulation of one set of people, of one man and the technology to be able to have things like a mist you can spray that reduces your stress. I did think some of the dialogue was very basic but I think as a YA book it was really good.

I really enjoyed this story and I look forward to see what happens next with Ava and Joseph. I received this book from the author for my honest opinion. show less

This book didn’t rile up a lot of feeling in me one way or another.

We’ll get the complaints out of the way first.

Ava Rhodes is the usual pretty, conveniently talented, courageous, and smart heroine. Combat trained, of course.

The rebels are cunning, technologically proficient, and, of course, pass on the Knowledge of How Things Are to Ava.

Young man and young woman predictably bond in romantic pairs.

It’s all formulaic and not a formula I like.

And I don’t generally like stories with show more teenaged characters.

But Pond does do some interesting stuff around the periphery though probably not enough to lure me to the rest of the series.

The motives of the dystopian order of Los Angeles City Center in the year 2130 are more detailed than I expected, her villains more interesting, and Pond’s political targets not what I expected. Morray’s obsession with Ava is because she doesn’t meet the design specs for his utopia.

If I was going to return to this world, it would probably be for the series prequel, The New Agenda, rather than Ava’s story. show less

Reviewed at The Hungry Monster Book Review

Ava Rhodes is an elite that lives in the Los Angeles City Center which is the only known bastion of life in a future post-apocalyptic world. Ava is bred from birth to be a successor candidate, someone who must spend their entire life competing in a game to become popular. Her popularity being voted on by the people, she stands to win the greatest prize in the City Center; to become queen. Ava’s plans for the future are quickly turned on its head show more when a terrorist from the Outside breaks into the utopian society and inspires doubt in Ava with a book that tells of humanity’s forgotten history. With the horrifying proposition that her entire life has been a lie she sets out to find answers. The journey she takes is not an easy one; she finds love, heartache, and loss. Ava is a stand out character and her life in the decadence of the City Center stands in stark contrast to the simple, easy going, agrarian lifestyle that people on the Outside lead. The City Center stands as a symbol for human ingenuity, technology, and peace, but Ava learns that the City Center’s purpose is much more sinister. The City Center’s director instigates fear in the form of a relentless and irrational attack on the City Center by outsiders to advance his ultimate objective of creating an intentionally misinformed populace whose fear and discontent are pointed towards a nonexistent enemy so that the City Center may continue its parasitic existence; everything Ava must change.

The first thing that I noticed about The City Center is how much it resembles The Hunger Games; in the best way, I think. Where Katniss’s internal dialogue seems to overwhelm The Hunger Games, Ava is more extroverted which leads to a much faster paced adventure. Where the novel tumbles for me is in its deeper logic. Ava was training to become a successor candidate and competes in some kind of a game in the arena, but I don’t believe we were told what that game actually was? How was it that the City Center stands as the pinnacle of human technology, but a bunch of farmers are able to crack City Center databases and take over the city’s security protocols? The elites seem to rule with an iron fist, but then seem to care what their own manufactured society thinks of them. All this might lead you to believe that I didn’t like the novel; on the contrary. I actually relay liked it as a YA novel, I think it hit all the right notes. My displeasure with the finer points of the novel really derives from the novels potential to be great but falling short. I found it really hard to give this book a star rating; I was jumping back and forth between 3 and 4 stars, this is a time when I wish I had a scale of 1 to 10. I only gave the book 3 stars because I felt that the dialogue wasn’t very dynamic and character development wasn’t on par with the amount of effort the author put into building a fantastic world. If you love The Hunger Games, The City Center should definitely be your next stop. show less

Reviewed at The Hungry Monster Book Review

Ava Rhodes is an elite that lives in the Los Angeles City Center which is the only known bastion of life in a future post-apocalyptic world. Ava is bred from birth to be a successor candidate, someone who must spend their entire life competing in a game to become popular. Her popularity being voted on by the people, she stands to win the greatest prize in the City Center; to become queen. Ava’s plans for the future are quickly turned on its head show more when a terrorist from the Outside breaks into the utopian society and inspires doubt in Ava with a book that tells of humanity’s forgotten history. With the horrifying proposition that her entire life has been a lie she sets out to find answers. The journey she takes is not an easy one; she finds love, heartache, and loss. Ava is a stand out character and her life in the decadence of the City Center stands in stark contrast to the simple, easy going, agrarian lifestyle that people on the Outside lead. The City Center stands as a symbol for human ingenuity, technology, and peace, but Ava learns that the City Center’s purpose is much more sinister. The City Center’s director instigates fear in the form of a relentless and irrational attack on the City Center by outsiders to advance his ultimate objective of creating an intentionally misinformed populace whose fear and discontent are pointed towards a nonexistent enemy so that the City Center may continue its parasitic existence; everything Ava must change.

The first thing that I noticed about The City Center is how much it resembles The Hunger Games; in the best way, I think. Where Katniss’s internal dialogue seems to overwhelm The Hunger Games, Ava is more extroverted which leads to a much faster paced adventure. Where the novel tumbles for me is in its deeper logic. Ava was training to become a successor candidate and competes in some kind of a game in the arena, but I don’t believe we were told what that game actually was? How was it that the City Center stands as the pinnacle of human technology, but a bunch of farmers are able to crack City Center databases and take over the city’s security protocols? The elites seem to rule with an iron fist, but then seem to care what their own manufactured society thinks of them. All this might lead you to believe that I didn’t like the novel; on the contrary. I actually relay liked it as a YA novel, I think it hit all the right notes. My displeasure with the finer points of the novel really derives from the novels potential to be great but falling short. I found it really hard to give this book a star rating; I was jumping back and forth between 3 and 4 stars, this is a time when I wish I had a scale of 1 to 10. I only gave the book 3 stars because I felt that the dialogue wasn’t very dynamic and character development wasn’t on par with the amount of effort the author put into building a fantastic world. If you love The Hunger Games, The City Center should definitely be your next stop. show less