Katniss, Gale and Peeta, anyone? Dol however does suffer in comparison to Katniss, being a much less kick ass, much more emo heroine. Then, we later meet Lucas, instantly recognizable to any avid YA reader as the other point in this love triangle, who is a blond ray of light and love, connecting to Dol in a very different, much more hopeful way than Ro’s anger does, and who has a natural ability to charm people. The introductory chapters in particular have much too many parallels to The Hunger Games. Apart from the obvious - dystopian world - there’s the female protagonist Dol with hot, brooding, angsty male best friend Ro who wants to overthrow the system, they’re each the only one who really understands the other, they both enjoy spending time in the outdoors. As such, it does start off a bit slow, though I enjoyed the introductory scenes of Dol and her best friend Ro in the countryside. Aliens have taken over the world, and a select group of teens have supernatural powers, though it’s unclear where the powers came from, or what the purpose of these powers are (presumably to defeat the aliens and taken back human freedom?).Īs the first book in any series, the primary task of Icons is to establish its world and introduce readers to the characters. Readers may quickly become annoyed themselves.Beautiful Creatures co-author Margaret Stohl begins a new YA dystopia/fantasy series with Icons. The characters are constantly at odds with each other, fighting and arguing, and seem always annoyed, especially Tima, who is hysterical and smug the entire book. Yet, once she's taken to the mysterious Embassy, she suddenly knows all about technology and is using all the tech lingo.Īt first readers might be geared up for an exciting dystopian novel, but they end up with a confusing tale about aliens and government conspiracies.

It starts out strong with an interesting world and a compelling heroine who's grown up isolated from the outside world in a Spanish Mission and doesn't know her true identity, but has always wondered why she and her friend Ro are different.

Instead, we get a mashup of The War of the Worlds meets just about every dystopian novel in today's teen market.

Author Margaret Stohl should have picked one sci-fi genre and gone with it. Icons is very confusing: It doesn't really know what it wants to be - dystopian or post-apocalyptic.

Icons by Margaret Stohl