3.5/5 
 now... cue ruby's 12am review, bc i can't stop thinking about this book! 
 really, REALLY solid read. i liked this book, but i would've loved this book during my dystopian-crave phase haha. 
 drawbacks were very few in this book but included: at times predictable, kind of insta-lovey and pacing was slow at times....... but! any drawbacks were pretty much completely outweighed by lauren oliver's beautiful characters and intense scenes that had me PHYSICALLY shaking. 
 i thought our heroine lena was initially very boring but i really felt her frustration and truly saw an arc in her storyline when she came to terms with this idea of "love" and this completely fucked up system that she's been put in. under these circumstances, i wish there would've been more strength in her character, i wish there was just a scene where she was able to accomplish something without alex saving the day. with that being said, i thoroughly enjoyed how thought provoking this book was. 
 i actually kind of didn't give any fucks about hana.... whoops. this book only had me riled up when lena was getting involved in things controlled by this 'government' if that makes sense? i loved the evaluation scene, the concert, the finale (oh my god the finale had me so shook), but hana? didn't really wow me. i appreciated their relationship together, but i didn't actually care for it. 
 alex was a good parallel to lena. he's not anything unique, we all know the rebel boy with a tragic backstory. but in this case, alex seemed like the good one. he made the reader love him just as much as lena did. it felt kind of half-assed to include the backstory that he "knew" her when he saw her running w/ the governor or some shit to make it seem less insta-lovey but whatever. it was cute when they tied the notes with the governor in throughout the story. it was also pretty predictable whenever lena was in trouble.... you KNEW alex was there and was going to save the day. 
 world building was pretty weak. i thought the premise was very dark, but i struggled to picture what this world was actually like. i'm reading this book while i am currently reading this savage song by v.e. schwab, i could literally picture myself immersed with the characters in this world. the difference between the two was very apparent, which is disappointing because i thought this book had a lot of potential for some phenomenal world building. 
 not sure if i'm going to be reading the second book, but to me, this book itself was really great.