Rating: 2.5/5 
 ***Minor spoilers*** 
 Greta Gustafsen Stuart is Duchess of Halifax and Crown Princess to the Pan Polar Confederacy. She lives in a world at peace, maintained by the Precepture system. In this system, all heads of countries (which are now different than ours) must have a hostage in order to be in power. At 4/5 years old, this hostage is taken to a Precepture, where they spend their life until they turn 18 and can return to their parents. If two countries declare a war on each other, each country's hostage dies. This system is maintained by the UN as well as an AI named Talis, who came up with the system in the first place. The system must be maintained, or else peace is threatened. Up to this point, Greta has accepted the system and been one of the best children there. However, when a boy named Elian arrives from a country which is on the brink of war with her own, Elian doesn't accept the system. He resists and is punished for it. Through his arrival, Greta learns more about what other things are going on at the Precepture, and how a lot of things aren't how they seem. 
 The concept of this book was pretty interesting. In order to keep world peace, Talis, a mastermind AI, makes it personal - if you go to war, your child dies. There is no way around this. Those who have threatened the system have been obliterated. But the fact is, a lot of this book was pretty boring. The writing was good throughout, but the events of the book were uneventful for a pretty long time. A good chunk of the book is spent observing Greta's everyday life, and while this was fine for a while, I quickly got tired of reading about a life of school and farming. Even when the action happened it was pretty mediocre, but the writing was enough for me not to rate this lower. 
 Another issue I had was with the characters. I didn't really feel anything for them, and didn't particularly care what happened to them. I read some reviews complaining about how bland Greta is, but that wasn't really my issue. I just felt like the rest of the people in the Precepture were just plain, boring, and much too similar. I also thought the romance was pretty messy in terms of how it was written in, which is my only issue with the writing. It seems to go all over the place, and while I suppose it's realistic considering Greta is around 16 years old and hasn't experienced romance for her entire life, it was a bit annoying. 
 Overall, this book was good, but not great. It could've improved in a few areas, particularly the stretches of time that were spent doing pretty much nothing. The best part would have to be the writing, and the worst would be the supporting characters. I'm only wondering how the next book is going to go, because to be completely honest this could be a standalone. I'm not opposed to reading the next book, but I don't have the slightest idea what the main conflict could be or what could take place. Regardless, I'd still recommend this to you if you're into sci-fi, just remember that this isn't the best sci-fi you'll read.