Reading this book reminded me of why I disliked reading Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale when I was younger. All three of them gave me the heebie-jeebies about the future, and it was not a pleasant feeling. I'm not sure why these sorts of books freaked me out more than, say, your average zombie book. Perhaps dystopias freak me out more because they feel more plausible than the dead coming back to life. When I look at today's politics, I can easily see this sort of thing happening to the United States within my lifetime, and it does not sound like fun. The difference between those other books and this, perhaps, is that this book is much more optimistic than Huxley or Atwood ever were, and I prefer happy endings. As far as plain old characters go, I thought this one wasn't too bad. It was certainly better than something like Twilight, or 90% of today's "young adult" literature. The part that did feel a little flat to me was the romance, but mostly in that parts of it just felt hokey to me. Overall, I enjoyed reading it, once I found the happy ending.