Name: Melissa Palmer's review of The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
Item: The Scorpion Rules
Rating: 5
Author: Melissa Palmer

Erin Bow

The children of world leaders are held hostage in an attempt to keep the peace in this “slyly humorous, starkly thought-provoking” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) novel. Greta is a Duchess and a Crown Princess. She is also a Child of Peace, a hostage held by the de facto ruler of the world, the great Artificial Intelligence, Talis. This is how the game is played: if you want to rule, you must give one of your children as a hostage. Start a war and your hostage dies. The system has worked for centuries. Parents don’t want to see their children murdered. Greta will be free if she can make it to her eighteenth birthday. Until then she is prepared to die with dignity, if necessary. But everything changes when Elian arrives at the Precepture. He’s a hostage from a new American alliance, and he defies the machines that control every part of their lives—and is severely punished for it. His rebellion opens Greta’s eyes to the brutality of the rules they live under, and to the subtle resistance of her companions. And Greta discovers her own quiet power. Then Elian’s country declares war on Greta’s and invades the prefecture, taking the hostages hostage. Now the great Talis is furious, and coming himself to deliver punishment. Which surely means that Greta and Elian will be killed...unless Greta can think of a way to break all the rules.

The Scorpion Rules

Megan McCullough

In the future, the UN has brought back an ancient way to keep the peace. The children of world leaders are held hostage—if a war begins, they pay with their lives. Greta is the Crown Princess of the Pan Polar Confederacy, a superpower formed of modern-day Canada. She is also a Child of Peace, a hostage held by the de facto ruler of the world, the great Artificial Intelligence, Talis. The hostages are Talis’s strategy to keep the peace: if her country enters a war, Greta dies. The system has worked for centuries. Parents don’t want to see their children murdered. Greta will be free if she can make it to her eighteenth birthday. Until then she is prepared to die with dignity, if necessary. But everything changes when Elian arrives at the Precepture. He’s a hostage from a new American alliance, and he defies the machines that control every part of their lives—and is severely punished for it. Greta is furious that Elian has disrupted their quiet, structured world. But slowly, his rebellion opens her eyes to the brutality of the rules they live under, and to the subtle resistance of her companions. And Greta discovers her own quiet power. Then Elian’s country declares war on Greta’s and invades the prefecture, taking the hostages hostage. Now the great Talis is furious, and coming himself to mete out punishment. Which surely means that Greta and Elian will be killed...unless Greta can think of a way to save them.

Melissa Palmer

Book #118 Read in 2015
The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow (YA)

In order to keep countries from declaring war on other countries, leaders and royals are forced to give up their children as hostages. They are the keepers of the peace. If war breaks out, the hostages are killed; this killing is caused by their parents making bad decisions. Greta is one such hostage but she begins to question her way of life when Elian, a new hostage, arrives at the compound. Will Greta's mother sacrifice her child for her country? This book was full of action, as well as some romance and humor. High school students as well as adults would enjoy this book. I was sent this book by Amazon Vine in exchange for a honest review.

http://melissasbookpicks.blogspot.com

Katherine Yang

As modern YA dystopian novels go, this is decent. WLW leading characters, ambiguous morality, and techno-philosophical food-for-thought about AI and government (physicist turned poet turned children's novelist is a beautiful life path).

On the other hand, scattered moments of insight and humour aside, the world-building and premise isn't as inventive and clever as it's made out to be. Instead, there were the expected points of contrivance that forced unnecessary tragedy and ritual for the sake of getting to write those minimum-length sentences of maximum emotion. This became especially evident in the last fifth of the book, where the author lost me. (Oh, and don't get me started on the redundancy of the last two sentences.)

A break, now, from YA dystopia, though I will inevitably return, having learnt no lessons, in hope of a wholly worthwhile novel in the genre.

Kirsten Simkiss

Having read one of Erin Bow’s other books, I went into this book hoping for the best. It became clear to me very quickly that this just wasn’t the book I was hoping for. While the concepts are interesting and the way the world coped with disaster was compelling, I couldn’t really get behind the characters all that much. They weren’t really three-dimensional so much. They didn’t feel real to me. This was also a book where from beginning to end you are expected, and even encouraged, to feel sorry for the characters. There’s no humor to the book - it’s all seriousness and sadness. What little humor there was gets swallowed up by the mounds of self-pity the characters inject into the story.

On the plus side, the concepts were great. As far as a dystopian sci-fi world goes, Bow did a great job. I even really liked the AI overlord Talis, though it was disappointing to me for him to have started off human. It was more fun for me to see him as an artificial intelligence who learned how to mesh best with humanity: brevity and wittiness. Also, can I get a hell yeah for the LGBT+ romance in this book? While I didn’t really love the character so much as I had hoped, it really is refreshing to see LGBT+ romances in teenage literature that aren’t fetishized. I thought this was very tastefully done. Actually, of the main group of side characters, Xie was definitely my favorite. I almost wish she could have been the main character.

Would I read this again? Probably not. Would I recommend this to others? Potentially. I think it would have to be the right person and the right reason. This might be one where I would make a recommendation if they’re looking for book worlds to inspire them. I definitely would say this book is geared toward pre-teens and older. With the moral dilemmas and the torture mentions, I would definitely think twice about handing this to some children.

Allison Garrett

I got 80 pages through this book and I put it down. I just couldn't get into it. There were parts I didn't understand, I had no connection to the characters, and the plot was slow.

Sheila

The last 40-odd pages redeemed this book for me, which is a good thing because this book was solidly in the 1-star range for a while there. I could not get into this; I can't give a damn about goats (SO MANY GOATS WHY), and are we sure Greta wasn't already a robot of some kind? She was so DULL. I didn't find Elian endearing, I wasn't hooked on the way the world-building was done, and the only bright spot was every time Li Da-Xia (Xie) was in a scene.

(view spoiler)[I only began to get interested in the world when Talis and the Abbot began to describe and explain the whole uploading process for humans to (try to) become AIs. I kind of wish this book was more about that, but then I realize the entire book would have to be re-written for the change in focus. (hide spoiler)]

Overall though? YAWN.

Juliette

2-3 stars. While easy to read, at times it felt like I had skipped a few pages and got a bit confused by the plot. I had hopes for this book when hearing it being compared to the Hunger Games. And while this book wasn't "bad" it certainly wasn't good enough to want me to read the next one or even really recommend it to a friend. Maybe it's just not my type of book, idk.

Samantha Seney

Reading YA has spoiled me. I almost finished the book in a day. I didn't pay attention in class, I only read.

I loved this story right up unitl four or five chapters to the end where it tore my heart out and I didn't pick the book back up literally right now.

Great job Erin Bow...

Nia C

DNF at 24%.

I can't take farming potatoes and goat-rearing as important in a dystopian world setting where literally nothing happens for the first 24% of the book. And that insta-love I read about for a couple chapters? was no help either.

This isn't for me. 

Two Stars (One star added for the snarky AI alone.)

Jeri

**WARNING: (EXTRA) LONG REVIEW**
I will be thoroughly discussing all the points that I disliked—and liked if I can think of any—about this book, so please bear with me.

It pains me to say this but I guess I grew out of this type of book. 

First of all, the writing style was just too... How do I put this? I guess it was a bit too basic for me? I got used to the third person point of view, and I thought I could go with the first person POV in this book, but I just couldn't help but cringe. Despite being first person, I couldn't feel Greta at all and I find Talis or the "Utterances" absolutely annoying and unbearable. He sounded like a know-it-all brat. Not to mention the farming. I felt like this book was 85% farming, 15% everything else. There were too many farmer things going on that I couldn't really keep track of what the story was about anymore. There were also phrases in the book that I just couldn't stand because of how cringe-worthy they were.
Here are some examples:
"I could smell him, feel the heat off him [...]" —Greta about Elian, Chapter 3
"adorably dorky" —Greta about Elian, Chapter 4 (and yes, that did happen)
"There was something magnetic about him, something that made it hard to look away." —Greta about Elian, Chapter 3 (again)
"I felt as if we were connected by a cord." —Greta about Elian, Chapter 6

Second, the world building, or the lack of it. Starting from the Prologue to Chapter One, I was awfully confused and I felt as if I was navigating through a game with no manual. I didn't understand what was happening or what kind of world I was currently "in". I was so confused with the Swan Riders at first, like are they human, are they AI? I only understood what they were along the latter part of Chapter One, when the AI tugged on her strap-on wings. The lack of proper descriptions made it so difficult for me to visualize their world. Like what are these machines, exactly? Insect-like contraptions? Is the Abbot similar to Karen from Spongebob? Because that's what I kept seeing in my mind! And the Panopticon is like the equivalent of a CCTV camera? I think? It confused me so much! 

Third, the characters. Oh, boy, it's about to get messy. Listen, okay, I absolutely do not understand why the people in the Precepture—her cohort, specifically—look up to Greta like she has some kind of power over them. She's a princess, sure, but they're all children of world leaders so I don't see why she was automatically considered as their cohort's leader. As a matter of fact, Da-Xia was definitely more fit to be the one with authority. She was very straightforward, headstrong, and admirable in general; she spoke for the group, made sure they would all stay disciplined during work time, and let's not forget how supportive, understanding, and caring she was the entire time. She was the only character I liked. When the situation requires someone to lead the group, Xie was always the one who did it, while Greta just sits in the corner and says, like, one sentence; I couldn't see Greta's significance at all. And, of course, there's Elian. There are A LOT of things about Elian that just made me want to say such inappropriate things! I can't even begin to grasp how annoyed I was with him 99.9% of the time! And that remaining 0.1% was his first appearance...from afar...and he wasn't talking...This guy made it to my list of unlikable love interests so easily, and that is a very hard list to join.

Finally, and perhaps the most ????? of all, was the romance. Greta and Elian were obvious, like we all knew from the synopsis that they were going to be The Couple, but HOLY SMOKES, I did not expect to get this pissed off by how fast things were going, like one minute we're witnessing a food fight, then the next we're talking about running away while holding hands and lying on the grass, but at least the goats are safe!!!! Wat. No, really, wat. By Chapter Three, we've got Little Miss I'm-A-Princess being all dreamy-eyed and, "I'm not romantically attracted to him but I think about him 24/7." Said! Every! Typical! YA! Chick! Honestly, it's like one of those high school romance stories where the main character is the rich It Girl everyone loves and the guy is the rebel new kid who teaches her how to "break the rules" and "have fun" except this one's got robot insects and an AI as a ruler. Yay! And hello, can I just—WHERE IN THE WORLD DID THAT LOVE TRIANGLE COME FROM???? There was no warning or indication that it was going to happen! I'm not talking about the holy-shit-I-didn't-see-that-coming kind of plot twist, I'm talkin' straightout pin-the-tail-on-the-plot-twist-no-matter-how-forced-it-seems. I would have loved, LOVED it if it were carefully executed but nope! It was like someone whacked me across the face with the most unpredictable, unnecessary item, like a rubber duck. I really, really didn't appreciate that.

Overall, this book definitely made me feel something, but it wasn't the good kind of feeling. I kept rolling my eyes, facepalming, yelling frustratedly, and cringing. I won't be reading the sequel anymore, this one was already too much for me.

Megan McCullough &
The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

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