Unfortunately I no longer wish to review this book as the first few chapters did not reel me in. Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you for providing a copy of this book for review however I was unable to open the file for this document unfortunately! Apologies.

While it has an interesting writing style and has potential, it is unfortunately like every other post-apocalyptic novel that has come out recently.

I was hoping that this would be something new but unfortunately it just seemed to be a mismatch of all other dystopian novels mixed in a bad way. I saw nothing original and the characters were a bit flat - disappointing.

This sci-fi for teens is going to appeal to the market audience, and thankfully the female half of it too with its heroine Amy, but it's not anywhere near as good as it should be.  The first section is fine, with a revisit of Wars of the Worlds through a sort of Cloverfield sensibility.  It then bogs down on one of the space ships, with betrayal and suchlike machinations every few pages – not helped by the silly diary style of alternating sections, that do nothing except twist the time-lines unnecessarily and force stings and cliff-hangery bits upon us.  Those bits that suggest something dramatic is around the corner when the narrative can only catch up to them are almost vital, as the book is far too long, and has so much that is inherently illogical I can't begin.  Shame.  One and a half stars.

"I was a traitor. I was a traitor to my country. I was a traitor to my people. I was a traitor to my planet"

* * 
2 / 5

I've never read anything quite like I Am Traitor, it's an imaginative book if nothing else. We have an alien invasion, teenagers being kidnapped, and a sense of foggy mystery that pervades the book so I never felt quite sure what was going on. Whilst interesting and keeps the reader on their toes, this also made it a very confusing and difficult read for me, not helped by the fact that several key elements of the book were not quite my thing.

"When we get home, Amy, I'm going to take you on a date. Like a proper date. I'm going to take you somewhere fancy. Somewhere posh. Like Nando's"

First off, our main character Amy Sullivan is fourteen years old, a little younger than I was expecting. Amy is obsessed by the fact that she hasn't had her first kiss (certainly not something I was concerned with at fourteen, or sixteen, or even eighteen...), I mean this is her go-to thought at any moment of danger, which became rather annoying. Other than this, Amy is an alright character but due to her age and interests I didn't find her particularly relatable. Other than kissing boys, or the lack thereof, Amy's chief concern is that Earth has been invaded by aliens and they are sucking teenagers up giant metal tubes to their spaceships. 

This idea is really quite interesting and I wasn't at all sure where this would go and what it would involve! Unfortunately, the direction that it took wasn't really what I was hoping for: I Am Traitor focused on suspense, suspicion, and romance. It does get straight into the action, the aliens are already here, on Earth and taking teenagers, which is quite exciting, but Amy's narrative is very confusing, especially at the beginning. It alternates between the present and Amy's diary entries, but this isn't very clearly marked, making for confused and difficult reading.

"It's funny how quickly your eyes get used to the dark. But the spirit ... the spirit never gets used to being locked up"

I'm not a massive fan of alien books anyway, but I found it hard to sink my teeth in I Am Traitor for a variety of reasons: the youth of the main cast, the romance element, the purposeful withholding of key information from the reader, and the overwhelming focus on the ~power of love~. Most of these reasons were merely down to personal preference and this might be a great book for an alien-loving younger reader, but as an adult I didn't not enjoy it.

"Living isn't just breathing. Living is experiencing, enjoying, having fun just for the hell of it. You shouldn't just live life, you should feel life. You should feel all its different dimensions; you should feel happiness, sadness, elation, grief. Love."

I am Traitor is a novel with surprisingly (in the best possible way) profound things to say for a 14-year-old protagonist who starts out obsessed with getting her first kiss. First impressions can be deceptive, and the book starts out mundane, even banal, but gradually crescendoes into a full-fledged story with impeccable plotting and emotional depth. Yes, there are clichés, tropes, stock characters and what have you, which will probably bother experienced readers of sci-fi more than they did me, but for a YA novel billed as a "modern day War of the Worlds with romance," it offers enough twists on the traditional to satisfy even picky readers.

For those who worry that this is another half-baked premise manufactured solely for the main characters to kiss--don't. While we're flying blind, so to speak, for about the first half of the novel (there's little explanation as to what in the world is going on until then), the world-building works well when it finally emerges. 

And while the relationship is rather too instalovish for my tastes, there's enough depth to it to keep things believable. More importantly, the novel's plot is strong enough to overcome any holes where the romance is concerned. Basically, I am Traitor is no Matched, even though it deals with many of the same themes. The way it handles those themes is more in alignment with The Giver, although I am Traitor is far more action-heavy.

There are echoes of The Diary of a Young Girl everywhere, and it's clear that Anne Frank's story influenced Amy Sullivan's journey on a significant level, down to short excerpts from Amy's fictional diary at the end of every chapter. I wasn't sold on the stylistic choice to begin with, especially as the excerpts created some narrative confusion due to being chronologically ahead of the chapters, but I've come to appreciate their indispensable value to the story. They are unconventional, sometimes confusing, sometimes painful or annoying or sad to read--just like the candid, private thoughts of a 14-year-old thrust into a fight way over her head.

And guys, the ending. I'm so happy that this book is a stand-alone, at least for now (I'm not saying a sequel could never work, but I'd have very high expectations for one). It's not easy to write an ending as gutsy and introspective as the one we get here, and trust me, it's worth it. A little cheesy, but worth it all the way, you get me?

YA dystopia may be over-saturated by this point, where all new releases must write something amazingly innovative or risk being panned as stale, but I am Traitor proves--convincingly--that the genre is far from dead. I hope that this author writes more speculative fiction, as she definitely has a gift for realistic world-building, and I definitely look forward to whatever she may come up with.