I read a digital edition of Filtered that I received for free from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for an honest review. Filtered is the first book in the Great Society trilogy.
Genre:Â Dystopian
Publisher:Â Monolith
Originally published:Â November 17th, 2015
Pages:Â 382 (paperback)
Blurb by the publisher:
Wear Your Mask—in the smog-choked city of Einsam it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.
Every aspect of life in the Great Society is regulated, your every action observed.
The only thoughts you can trust are your own.
Seventeen years of oppression boil in Evelyn’s mind and she’s desperate for a way out.
In an act of defiance, she breaks from routine and discovers a world of radicals and dissidents. Beliefs she thought immutable crumble away like ash.
Standing on the threshold between the world she’s always known and an uncertain path toward freedom, Evelyn must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice to learn the truth about the Great Society.
My thoughts:
When it comes to dystopian novels, I tend to feel that I often come across the same storylines over and over again, but Filtered was something very different.
It is a dystopian novel with a premise of a future that had me feeling suffocated together with the main character and wanting to fight for the truth alongside with her. And while it is fiction and all, I can’t help feeling that a lot of the scary parts of a government-driven fear hits quite close to home. We live in a world where we see the evil of the world combined with information overload, and reading a novel like Filtered has me considering how much of my everyday thinking and actions are completely my own.
Filtered is a story of dystopia, but it is also one about power, control, propaganda and the search for truth and human kindness in the darkest of places.
It took me a little while to connect with the main character Evelyn, but at some point, she took me by the hand on this scary but exciting adventure. There were quite a few characters that I would have loved to know better, and also a lot of questions I have been left unanswered, but knowing this is the first book in a trilogy (and ending on quite the cliff-hanger I must say), I’m hoping that will change when the story continues on.
Filtered was a breath of fresh air, and I will be impatiently waiting for the next book in the series!
Click on the Reedsy Discovery logo below to get to know more, maybe get your own copy, and let me know what you think of it💛
Christina de Vries 