Book Review: The Liberty Box by C.A. Gray

ISBN: B0161X44Y2
Expected publication: October 25th, 2015
Publisher: Wanderlust Publishing
Read from October 11th to 18th, 2015
Synopsis from Goodreads:

Kate Brandeis has it all: a famous reporter at the age of twenty-four, she’s the face of the Republic of the Americas. She has a loving fiancé and all the success she could wish for. But when she learns of the death of a long-forgotten friend, her investigations unravel her perfect memories, forcing her to face the fact that she’s been living a lie.
Jackson MacNamera, trained from a young age in the art of mind control, returns to the Republic for his mother’s funeral. Within a few hours of his arrival, authorities collect Jackson and take him by force to a room ironically called The Liberty Box, where he must choose between surrendering his thoughts to the new Republic, or fleeing for his freedom.
Kate, bereaved and confused, finds her way to a cave community of refugees, where Jackson seems to offer her an escape from her grief. The two forge an uneasy bond, and in the process Jackson learns that Kate has some insight which may help the hunters in their attempt to free other citizens from the tyranny of the Potentate. Against the expressed wishes of the Council, the hunters plot a series of daring raids, attempting to prove that not only is freedom possible, but that the citizens are not too far gone to desire it. But with the odds so stacked against them, can the refugees succeed in their rescue missions right under the Potentate’s nose? 

Review:

If you read enough of my reviews, then it's entirely unsurprising that I find myself drawn to dystopian novels. It fascinates me to see various different imaginings of the future, even when they're grim. This is one of those dystopian books that isn't set all that far in the future, and you actually get to learn quite a bit about how the Republic of the Americas was formed from the former United States. I really enjoyed that aspect of the book. I feel like the majority of dystopian books I read stays vague about how society reached the point they're at, but this one didn't. I enjoyed seeing bits of that unfold and hearing about it from some characters who had lived through it and were still alive.

The focus on mind control was also fascinating to me. I can think of one other dystopian series that had a way of controlling people's thoughts through brain surgery, but it was nothing like the mind control in this book. It was intriguing to read about how easily manipulated everyone was into believing things that could be proven to be untrue just by really analyzing what was in front of them.

I greatly enjoyed this story overall. There were a few points here or there where it could come across as a little preachy and the message it was trying to send was very blatant. I know that's something that bothers some people, but it wasn't something that bothered me all that much. I've never been against that sort of thing the way I think some others are.

The way the story ended has me incredibly excited for book two. I have so many questions about how the rest of the story will unfold, and I can't wait to read and find out.

I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.