I have very mixed feelings overall towards The Murder Complex. It sounded like a pretty typical dystopian book, but it had a cool cover and I was excited for it anyway. My first impression of it was correct though; it was interesting enough but at the same time I don't feel like it was particularly memorable. What's frustrating is that I probably would have enjoyed this novel more had I read it like two years ago. Since then I've read so many books in this genre that it takes a little more to really excite me. Maybe my standards are too high, but that's just the way it is. 
 The best thing about The Murder Complex is the constant action. It really lived up to its name; there was plenty of fighting and murder. For this reason, it's easy to go back to it and keep turning the pages. However sometimes it's so fast-paced that I lost track of who the characters were with or where the heck they were. They would be in one setting on one page, and in a totally different area on another. I almost wished the plot would slow down just a bit. If the sequel has a tighter plot, it will be a vast improvement. 
 I was really annoyed by the odd words in this book. Examples are skitz, Chum Head and one other curse word I can't remember. That's not limited to this book; generally I hate it whenever the characters have their own swear words. Mostly because they end up sounding ridiculous. Either use the real words, or don't use them at all. 
 It took me a bit too get used to the world, but I kind of like the darkness of it. There's Creds, their form of currency, and a lot of murder. I don't feel like we learned a ton about it, though. The pre-Fall stuff is pretty hazy and I still don't understand why The Murder Complex exists in the first place. So they invented a Cure for all known diseases. They follow up that miracle by creating a system that kills people? Eventually I figured they did that because since no one got sick and lived a long time, they were having issues with over population. But that's never really said in the book, and I'm aggravated because I'm not sure if I just missed something or if it's really not there. Again, why does the Murder Complex exist? At this point I'm pretty positive that the world outside their Perimeter is fine and they're all just trapped like rats to be experimented upon. So I want a better understanding of their society in the future. I don't like it when a book leaves me confused. 
 I actually really liked Meadow. She was strong and confident. She could fight and she wanted desperately to protect her family in this twisted environment. I liked reading from her perspective because she just made a lot of sense. I never really felt too connected to Zephyr (whose name I strongly dislike). He was alright and I guess I felt bad for him, but really I just felt he had a pretty bland personality. Because of that, I was mostly indifferent towards the romance. They fall in love way too quickly for me to believe in it. Zephyr in particular drove me insane with how early on he told himself he loved Meadow. He apparently really cares for her, and Meadow was attracted to him. But she has this weird transition where she starts to let him touch her. I felt like all the enthusiasm about the relationship was coming from Zephyr, and Meadow was kind of just like, "Yeah, whatever. You're here so I guess I'll be with you". 
 Meadow's dad was irritating. I get that he's trying to train them to stay alive, but any of his kids could have easily died in the situations he put them in. I'm not even really sure if the author means for us to see him as a villain or a good character. No one else was developed that well so I can't say much about them, though I admit I was starting to like Orion. So even though The Murder Complex was not as good as I wanted it to be, it was still entertaining and I'll pick up the sequel at some point. 
 3 stars