It's hard to find a unique dystopian read these days, but I glad to say that it's not entirely impossible. At first, I was wary of this book. It sounded pretty good, but the idea was a little overused. It's starts off that way too. Parents take girl away from horrible society and live in the forest. Dad dies. Soldiers come take over and girl gets taken back to horrible society. Girl meets hot guy. Sparks start flying.
I fell for that story line so many times.
Except, it's not like that this time. It might seem like it, but there's more to the story than I previously thought.
Shymers ended up surprising me. There was just so much happening, so many questions that needed answering, so much drama everywhere. I was hooked, intrigued, and fascinated. I'd underestimated Jen Naumann's storytelling capacity. Her writing was mesmerizing and sucked me in no matter what. The idea itself is borderline cliche, but I had absolutely no problem with that. This is probably one of the few books, that I've encountered, that uses these cliched ideas to its advantage. It worked wonderfully.

The world building.
People lived in a society where one's DOD (Date of Death) is known. If they lived to be older than a certain age, then they were marked as a Future. They got the best out of life. But if they were destined to die before that age, then they were branded a Shymer. They didn't get as many privileges as the Futures did.
Outside of society were the Free Lands where the rebels lived (this included Olive and her extended family).
Of course, the illusion of the perfect society is soon destroyed once Olive is reintroduced. (She is such a troublemaker)
Rebellions start to build. People get hurt. It's the usual thing
It takes a while before the real stuff starts to happen though. When it does, the book gets really hard to put down. This is where the plot twists make their entrance.
Where they predictable? I'd say 50-50. But that 50 I didn't expect... yeah... whoa.
Jen does a great job building up the suspense to the climax. It's intense, nail-biting intense. Not everything was uncovered in the first few chapters.

The Romance and the Characters.
Shymers is split up into two POV's, Olive's and Harrison's (though Olive's POV is the only one in first person). Olive is, at first, very naive. She lived her whole life isolated from the real world so, when she was taken back to society, she was reduced to a mumbling fool. She learned quickly though, and soon enough she could decided right from wrong. I admired her perseverance and the fact that she never cowered to the Futures like everyone else did. Except she was very willy-nilly sometimes. Her choices were not always thought out and the consequences were not always so believable.
Harrison, on the other hand, was more complicated. He had a difficult past, but he was a quick healer. He took an instant liking to Olive (even if he didn't know yet). At times, he acted like an overprotective brother and treated Olive like a delicate china doll. Which was why I was slow to warm up to him, but I eventually did.
The romance between Olive and Harrison... well, it was the only thing in the entire book that I was actually disappointed with. There wasn't any passion in it. It felt like 'insta-love'. She saw him. He saw her. BAM! Instant connection. Their love relationship doesn't start until the last quarter of the book, but it still felt way too sweet for me. That was a huge letdown. Fortunately, the book doesn't revolve solely on the romance. The rest makes up for it. Completely.

Overall
I loved Shymers. Once I got through the beginning, the pacing turned lightning quick and I was done before I even knew it. The bad side? Cliffhanger! Yes, you read that right. There's a cliffhanger at the end. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being not-that-bad and 10 being how-can-the-author-be-so-cruel, I would give this a solid 7. That's on the upper half of the scale.
It was getting so good and now I'm left itching for the next one. Authors don't play fair anymore!
But other than that and the romance, Shymers earned its spot on my favorites list. Cliche or not, it's a story I'm glad I didn't miss out on.
Completely recommend it! ( )