I always feel like I have to apologize for not liking a book as much as I’d hoped. Especially when it was sent to me. *sigh* No book is for everyone though, right?

Probably doesn’t help that I was going through a bit of a slump. I’m baring that in mind when it comes to this review.

Let’s talk about The Future of the Past!

Title: The Future of the Past

Author: C.S. Morgan

Publisher: Double Dragon Publishing

Series Status: The 1st book in a series (I think) 

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian

Number of Pages:  203

(Found on back cover and Goodreads)

A young man is being questioned in an interrogation room. He does not know his crime but he knows why he is there. A young woman is brought in and introduced as his RECESSIVE JUDGE. She has the folder with the sundial emblem. They hold the results of his SOUL SCREENING, the government’s new initiative. As the young man reflects on recent events, it soon becomes clear the crime he is about to be accused of was committed in a past life and he knows only too well how dire the punishment will be. All this is a year from now. The existence of the soul is scientifically proven. Our past lives are real. Our past crimes are real. Now we must pay for them.

*I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

Doesn’t this book sound so interesting? I mean, it’s about a world that’s advanced so far in science, they’ve not only managed to prove the soul exists, but they can also scan it and play a video of your past lives back to you.

Only the government starts using these scans to find criminals from past lives.

And things turn really bad, really quick. 

I loved the idea behind the plot. It sounded like such a strong story, with an endless amount of problems to write about. Just like a dystopian should be. People trying to survive a messed up world – and yet the original problem is so unique. The problem is literally history, the government taking advantage of people’s souls and punishing people for the things they did in their past lives. You see the world go from relatively normal to complete chaos.

I also liked how this book tackled identity, which isn’t something I think about often in books. With the entire population of this book finding out who they were in their past lives, everyone would change. Their personalities would adjust as they just accepted whatever fate they had lived through previously. People would completely change who they were, choosing whichever life seemed to fit the best. And I just found that to be really interesting, I’ve not seen it done before.

“They’re all doing it now. Choosing their best face.”

But while the overall plot intrigued me…the actual storytelling didn’t do much else for me.

There seemed to be a distinct lack of emotion, both from me and the main character. All these shocking and dangerous events were happening, and yet hardly any emotion was shown through the main character. I didn’t pick up on him feeling scared, apprehensive, overwhelmed, nervous, wary, anything. And because of that, the action didn’t come across that thrilling to me. The danger didn’t feel that terrifying. They were all just events that were happening.

I feel like if the book was just a bit longer, and more time was spent looking into the main character’s mind to understand his feelings of the situations rather than just looking at them…I feel like it’d be a much more thrilling story. Feeling the fear and danger from the action can make it all the more gripping.

Admittedly, I was going through a bit of a reading slump at the time, so that might contribute to why I didn’t feel that much towards the story. There might be a time where I reread the book and change my rating. But right now, I didn’t have many emotions towards the story at all.

One more thing – there were a lot of mistakes in this book. Now, I don’t usually mention spelling or grammar mistakes in my reviews, because they’re rare and any I do see can be passed off as an accidental let-through. But this book… this book just had way too many for me to ignore. Spelling and grammar mistakes, along with a few sentences that didn’t even make sense due to missing words. And it all seemed so noticeable to me. It would completely knock me out of the story, stumbling across a mistake and thinking “Oh. That’s not right.” Which is a shame.

So yeah. This book.

This book really intrigued me plot-wise, but unfortunately it just didn’t grip me. It took me much longer to read than it should have done considering the size, but it DID interest me enough to keep reading. I just think a bit more emotion from the characters would have helped a lot. And fewer mistakes.

Rated 2/5 stars

Amazon

---

---

Share your thoughts!

Have you read this book? What did you think?

If you haven’t read this book, do you plan to?

Does it sound like something you’d enjoy?

Let me know in the comments!

Until next time…

Come and visit me!

    

Snapchat username: “frolic_fiction”