What an amazing concept. I really enjoyed this read, it’s so different to anything I’ve come across before

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

"In a world where every word is copyrighted, one girl would rather remain silent than pay to speak"

The concept of this book is quite haunting, having to pay for our words. But it certainly makes the reader think about how they would speak if there was a price when they opened their mouth. Katsoulis writes this concept eerily well as we discover Speth's struggles with debt and will for freedom of speech.

This is quite a unique dystopia that sways away from the usual tropes. It was eyeopening and addictive, whilst also feeling so real. This book is fast-paced and cleverly written, very easy to read in one sitting.

Read Dec 18

I can confidently say that this is one of the most unique books I’ve ever read! The idea of charging for the words we speak is so unusual and frighteningly possible. The world-building and how everything is so connected is astonishing and I commend the amount of work that went into it.

The world was so incredible that some of the characters fell a little flat, our main character Speth in particular. I’d like to see a non-verbal character written right and this wasn’t it. Speth was just not very smart and made some very poor decisions including betraying one of her few friends.

DNF at 54%. Very interesting concept to the book however I did not like the writing style and found it boring.

This was such an interesting premise. A world where you are charged for every gesture or sound you make. The main character Speth decides to stop speaking as a way of protest and soon more people follow in her footsteps. I really enjoyed this book even though it was harrowing at times.

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

I really enjoyed the premise of this book, something very different and unique. I liked the characters and the writing was great, the story seemed realistic and was entertaining throughout.

All Rights Reserved stands upon a truly amazing concept, one that becomes more and more recognisable and tangible with each passing day that the orange man sits perched in a particular white house, but its world-building, characterisation and writing really let the initial idea down. And, I am just frustrated, you know? Because this could have been so groundbreaking and refreshing after nigh on a decade of an over-saturated market of same-same dystopian fiction, but the execution just really was not there. And, because of us reading so many of them, we are all far too aware of the fact that a dystopian is reliant on its execution; on the world it describes, on the people whose suffering it elicits. Without them, everything on the page just feels blurred around the page; like wisps of intangible smoke blowing away to some unknowable place. And, All Rights Reserved was as out-of-focus and insubstantial as it gets.

I finally got round to finishing this book a little while back, and I am so glad I did! As usual, I will avoid going into too much detail regarding the plot so as to prevent spoiling it for any potential readers.
The protagonist in this novel is Speth. Her name was chosen for it's low price - the world she lives in charges citizens for everything. After the age of 15, a special cuff tracks speech, gestures, purchases and so on, and fines the individual accordingly. It's copyrighting to the extreme. And, sadly, it really doesn't seem all that far-fetched.
On Speth's fifteenth birthday, she has her speech prepared and sponsors ready with products to advertise at her party. But a friend of hers suddenly takes a drastic move, stunning Speth into silence. And so, unintentionally, Speth begins a revolution.
Speth continues to uphold her silence, even when offered money and even attacked. Miraculously, she runs into a near-mythical group of people - the Product Placers. Nobody has ever seen them before. There is no footage of them, even in this world of constant monitoring and recording. And, even more miraculously, is that the Placers decide to <em>help </em>her.
Along with her own issues, Speth is trying to solve problems in her own home. Her parents have been taken to repay an old, <em>old </em>family debt, while her sister has been sued for looking too much like a famous actress. People - the Silents - begin to look up to her as a leader, and there are lawyers who are willing to pay good money to stop her "rebellion".
There is a lot going on in this book, as you can probably tell from this brief summary. The development of Speth's relationships is really interesting, considering she can't speak or communicate in any way. I was also really quite surprised with how the romantic plot went, honestly. And toward the end... there is a <em>huge</em> blow. I definitely was not expecting that to happen.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. It took me a while to get round to finishing, but not because I found it tiresome or anything like that. I found myself actually struggling to put it down as I got toward the end, which sounds really cliche but is the honest truth. It was so realistic and plausible, scarily so. 5 stars for this.

Whilst I loved this concept, it felt like it was missing something. I’m a huge fan of dystopian fiction and this story sounded so unique but I felt that it fell a bit short of the mark.

Also with an open ending, I really wanted there to be a concrete resolution.

This book sounded great and the blurb about it had me intrigued
I thought the story was good in parts and did keep my interest but the main character who narrates the story I did not like at all and found the vow of silence etc poorly thought out
Still a fantatsic and fascinating idea for a book and may have worked better as an adult book rather than YA????

All Rights Reserved is a dystopian book that takes place in a future where everything you do and say costs money. Some words cost more than others and actions such as a kiss will cost you. This book is very well written and is really quite disturbing. Would highly recommend!

Cover: Very eye-catching with its bright green colour and shadowed figure with the copyrighted words behind them. It’s definitely one that draws your attention.

Synopsis:
Speth lives in a world where, from the moment she turns fifteen, every word has to be paid for. Every single word and many actions are trademarked and people have to pay to use; a single sentence can set you back hundreds of dollars. Most people live in crippling debt and when Speth’s friend commits suicide rather than work off that debt, she refuses to speak another word.
But when this action catches on with the growing population what will multibillion dollar corporations do to get her to talk?

Review:

This dystopic novel is a very timely novel, taking the modern need for copyright ownership, intellectual infringement and the lawsuit mentality and taking them through to their natural conclusion.

In this world, all words are property of someone else. All music, clothing, hairstyles, actions and ideas already belong to someone. Anything and everything you do can be charged.

Every fifteen year old is fitted with a Cuff that records your actions and fines you accordingly. Speth’s sister Saretha is charged $9.98 for the phrase “It’s beautiful.” And $2 for patting her sister on the shoulder.
With charges like this it is easy to see how everyone is swimming in debt. Added to that is the National Inherited Debt Act that actively looks through your past to see if any of your family ever broke trademark and adds that to your debt. Most families have been torn apart because of their ancester’s illegally downloading music, owning pirate CDs or other atrocities.

Speth’s parents are taken away because they ‘owe’ six million dollars and, from the outset, it looks like every single one of her friends has the same situation. All of their parents are absent and they are bought up by a Custodian who has their words paid for by the government. Her job is little more than to keep the children in line and get them endorsements for products.

The moment Speth turns fifteen she is supposed to make a speech endorsing some products as her first officially paid for words. Crowds of her friends are gathered to watch and during this time a friend commits suicide rather than pay off the debt of his family. As a reaction to this Speth decides to ‘zip her lips’ and refuse to speak. She shuns all sorts of communication. She refuses to speak, to nod, to smile or engage whatsoever.

One might think that this is heroic; a way to stick it to the man.

But in reality Speth is a scared girl who has no idea what she is doing.

In the same vein as Katniss from Hunger Games, Speth is a reluctant hero. She isn’t doing this to save everybody, to make a stand or start a rebellion. All she wants is some choice over her actions.

In that way she is a sympathetic figure, one who you want to succeed.

Sadly her reluctance to speak starts to grate on you. She is given several chances to speak, to explain herself without repercussions, but she doesn’t take them. She also causes harm to many people, not just through her silence but through her actions and these do not seem to bother her at all.

Speth becomes less sympathetic and more annoying the further you go in the story. Perhaps because she doesn’t have dialogue and we can only judge her based on her actions and stream of consciousness she comes across as cold-hearted, single-minded and obstinate. Her refusal to speak becomes less of a stand and more of a sulk.

On the whole the other characters seemed one-dimensional, whether that is because we only have Speth’s point of view is unclear, but it does make for some tropic stereotypes.

The villain Silas Rog is a megalomaniac bordering on psychopathic; the governmental pseudo-parent- Mrs Harris- is mercenary and heard-hearted; the plucky younger brother is wise and brave; the love interest is sweet and kind hearted and so on.

The story gets going and takes several different direction which add to the rich world that Katsoulis has created. I loved reading about the Adverts that pop up in your cornea implant which you have to watch or be fined. It reminded me of a Black Mirror episode with a similar premise. The Product Placers were a great touch and the whole society was fascinating as well as bleak.

There were a few inconsistencies which did grate on me. Speth tells of her parents talking to her about “liberties” where a person could take out books for free, yet later on she clearly knows what a library is. She breaks the heart of one of her new ‘friends’ and uses another and yet they trust her implicitly without repercussions.

The Carol Amanda Harving twist was brilliant and yet was suddenly dropped and ignored. Several times it read like Speth has completed an action that should have been charged for but was ignored. When she uses her gymnastics to go from rooftop to rooftop during her training shouldn’t she have been fined?

That said I have to say I did enjoy the book. The world that was crafted was so in depth and interesting that any glaring omissions were able to be ignored. I would recommend it unless you are triggered by suicide and indentured servitude.

All Rights Reserved is a story that would work perfectly as an episode of Black Mirror. The premise sounds a bit far fetched, but at the same time you can’t help but wonder if it isn’t something that might just happen one day. I mean, personalized advertising the book mentions often, is already sort of a thing now…

Imagine you live in the world where everything you say costs you serious money. Depending on the day words that were cheap just last week can skyrocket in price as they are treated like shares on the stock market. You can have opinions, but you might not be able to afford to express them.

One of our basic humans rights nowadays is the freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Have you ever thought that maybe some opinions shouldn’t be allowed to aired in public? Well, the people in this story have, and it’s not pretty. Once they reach the age of 15, everyone forced to wear a tracking device that charges them money as soon as they open their mouths to speak. These devices are also known for occasionally exploding for no reason, killing the person wearing them. Lovely. Facial expressions and body language are also not free: use them to expressively or too often, and you’ll have to pay.

All Rights Reserved could have been a fascinating book, if it weren’t for Speth, our accidental hero. Yes, accidental, because as much as the blurb tries to suggest that she’s some sort of a revolutionary figure who inspires change throughout the whole nation, at the end of the day she’s just a fifteen year old girl who makes one stupid decision after the other, based on fuck knows what, because most of the time her actions were not driven by conscious decision, but rather teenage defiance. You know, the sort of situation in which you are given multiple opportunities to save your parents from eternal imprisonment by giving your government mandated speech and you go like “yeah… hmm, no can do because I’m relatively sure I don’t feel like.”

This book could have been way more powerful, as opposed to quite entertaining, if Speth would have been a bit older, or at least more conscious of her decisions. After all, most fifteen year old kids don’t have a well thought out plan for their future let alone the future of their fellow countrymen, and it’s perfectly normal. It’s also quite normal to make some not-so-great decisions, especially under pressure, but the sheer stupidity of this girl infuriated me quite often. Her choice to not speak didn’t seem like a choice, more like a combination of fear and some kind of silly logic that was great to drive the plot forward, but this girl couldn’t even explain it to her self most of the time why she’s actually doing all this. Speth literally took every opportunity to fuck someone over, be that herself, her sister her beloved little brother (who is adorable as fuck by the way) or her friends.

This is quite an action packed story, and once Speth joins the mysterious group called The Placers, things take an interesting turn. Kel, Margot and Henri were awesome, and I wish I could have seen their perspective, but alas I was stuck with poor Speth and had to see it through her eyes as she jeopardized her newfound friendships and quasi betrayed these lovely people for seemingly shits and giggles. As I said, young teens are not famous for making wise decisions, but they are also not knows for fucking everything up all the time. To be fair, Speth did have the occasional good idea, and it’s fair game to rely on the help of her friends when it comes to execution, but she just went about it in such sly ways sometimes, that it made me wonder whether it was even worth it.

While the story certainly had quite an atmosphere, I felt like I didn’t get a proper feel of the city and the people living in it. Of course, it’s expected that when your opinions and words are controlled, information won’t be free flowing, but I couldn’t figure out if they live in a massive city, like New York for example, or perhaps the population living under these domes are more spread out. I also had no real sense of how this government works. Speth’s city (dome?) seems to be run by powerful lawyers, one of them being something like the Chief Justice, but the scale of this eluded me completely.

Unnecessary drama is another thing I don’t tolerate well, and boy did I get a massive dose of it in my face. Why? WHY? Also, thanks, Speth… Thanks a lot! .

I’m still on the fence whether I want to continue with the series or not. On one hand I’m quite curious of how the story will continue with the revolution, but I’m just not quite sure I can put up with Speth’s antics one more time.

A fantastic YA novel with a chillingly plausible story line! In a world where every word you speak and every gesture you make is chargeable possibly leading you into debt and collection (which is literally the debtors collecting you to go work off what you owe).

I loved Speth's character - her determination to see her silent protest through afainst all odds was admirable. The lawyers were the true bad guys and honestly gave me the chills!

I can't wait to read the next in this series.

I absolutely loved this book. I loved Speth, Sam and even Saretha. I cannot wait until the second book comes out next month.

I loved the world building and the idea of a society that loves money so much they have gone to the lengths of copyrighting everything. They have to wear a cuff from there 16th birthday that records and charges them for every word spoken and every gesture made.

This is why on Speth’s last day she takes a vow of silence. This book was heartbreaking from time to time and made me so emotional. I need the next book.

I really enjoyed this book. I felt the writing style was really good. We are following a girl,some time in the near future,who inadvertently starts a movement by staying silent in a world where every word spoken and every gesture is copywrited and charged. You would be charged with a cuff connected to your wrist.I could really understand her frustration on not being able to speak or gesture. I was so engrossed in the story that after reading for a while, when someone would say something to me, I would be kind of surprised that I could talk. Freedom of Speech is something we take for granted and in this world there's nothing of the sort. The scary thing is, this could be a possible future. Maybe not in the extreme that is in this book,but something close to it. The world building was really good and not everything was just thrown at you. It was gradual, and I feel like I really understood it. There was one part of this story that really shocked me. I wasn't expecting that and i didn't like what had happened. I just feel there was something missing from the book, which is why I gave it a lower rating.

4/5

All Rights Reserved follows Speth Jime who lives in a world not far off from ours. Speth lives in a world where every word you say or every action you make is copyrighted and costs money to say or do said actions. The moment somebody turns fifteen in this world, you start paying for every word that you say. And this is where we pick up our story, Speth turns 15 and must make a speech that has been paid for a company but after that all the word that she speaks puts her into more family debt. Speth’s friend Beecher who had previously turned fifteen, then commits suicide right in front of her and Speth decides she must rebel and silence herself and defy societal norms. I loved this book and it was such a cool concept but I feel at some points that it fell short and that it was like every other YA dystopian that the protagonist must rebel against the system. However, one thing that I did like was the face that the word ‘sorry’ is a legal admission of guilt and costs ten dollars. That is an interesting notion and one that I would love to have seen explored more within this book. I also listened to this book as an audio book so that was pretty cool. To have this book read out loud and have the notion that every word that was being said could have cost Speth and her family was surreal and added a cool twist to the story.

Overall 4 out of 5 stars.

All Rights Reserved is a new (to my knowledge) take on a dystopian novel: set in a future which seems to have been instigated by the lawyers of massive corporations, lawyers – one in particular – have usurped freedom of speech. Every single word, expression and gesture is Trademarked ™, Restricted ® or Copyrighted ©. This has resulted in everyone, from the age of fifteen, having to wear monitors so that they are able to be charged for all communication and sued for things like an insult. There are even public domain hairstyles and clothing that must be used if you don’t want to be charged. I think we all know which socioeconomic group would be most impacted by this.

This is definitely a unique and intriguing concept; one which, as I read, I could certainly see the links to parts of our current society. However, the main character, Speth, left a lot to be desired. The story starts with Speth’s fifteenth birthday where she is supposed to make a speech as her first paid-for words. But when her “friend” Beecher commits suicide (something that is seemingly extremely prevalent as there are anti-suicide ads with creepily condescending singing bunnies that pop up whenever someone is feeling any strong negative emotion), Speth doesn’t give her speech and chooses to stay silent from then on. This starts the ball rolling, culminating in Speth leading a revolution – reluctantly, I would say. I mean, I don’t understand her motivations throughout most of this story; at least concerning the big story points. The main one being: going silent in the first place. Perhaps because she never seems to know herself. Considering the sheer will-power necessary to withhold all forms of communication – especially in a couple of the situations that occur, the obscurity of her rationale is puzzling and unsatisfactory.

This was only one element, though, that made Speth impossible to connect with. I even sat there one evening, about to read the last 25-ish%, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember her name. All of the Placers felt more thought-out and relatable; I definitely feel that I knew those characters more, despite this being a first-person narration from Speth. I understand that her lack of dialogue makes her characterization more challenging, but it’s first-person; her lack of communication shouldn’t hinder the readers, just the other characters.

The storyline also seems a bit clumsy in parts. There was a certain side story involving Speth’s sister that seemed to be interesting and have promise, and it did illustrate the power that the lawyers hold and the lengths that the antagonist will go to, but there were numerous other things that portray this and it ended up going nowhere. Additionally, the ending felt extremely rushed. Despite there being another book in the series, it felt like the ending was very hastily compiled so as to conclude the events from this story and be able to move on. The timeline is also confusing: I’m not sure when exactly this is supposed to be. Nobody seems to remember a time before all of these laws went into effect, but it’s later mentioned that there’s a kind-of myth about a book that could fix everything (which, I can only assume, is meant to be The United States Constitution). Not to sound too convoluted, but if no one was alive when things were different, then nobody knows any different, and in what way would a book fix things? If that makes any sense…

To sum up: I didn’t hate it. It was just OK. The story did not live up to the idea. I won’t be continuing the series.