Dominion Trilogy Book 1
by Joe Hart
Synopsis
A mysterious worldwide epidemic reduces the birthrate of female infants from 50 percent to less than 1 percent. Medical science and governments around the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but twenty-five years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than a thousand women.
Zoey and some of the surviving young women are housed in a scientific research compound dedicated to determining the cause. For two decades, she’s been isolated from her family, treated as a test subject, and locked away—told only that the virus has wiped out the rest of the world’s population.
Captivity is the only life Zoey has ever known, and escaping her heavily armed captors is no easy task, but she’s determined to leave before she is subjected to the next round of tests…a program that no other woman has ever returned from. Even if she’s successful, Zoey has no idea what she’ll encounter in the strange new world beyond the facility’s walls. Winning her freedom will take brutality she never imagined she possessed, as well as all her strength and cunning—but Zoey is ready for war.
I'm rather on the fence about this one, readers. On one hand, it was an interesting concept that centered around the reduction of female infant births - very sci fi. However, it is definitely a slow read that did not fully satisfy me with its characters. There were some twists and it did have me interested, but I did not feel compelled to keep going with the story.
I should also mention that I am a little biased in that I don't like many dystopian books. I have to truly care about the characters in order to really enjoy a dystopian novel.
I need to also make it a point to say that one of the major reasons I could not enjoy this story is because it confused me. In a world where women/girls are surviving less and less - why would those who do survive be treated harshly? Should they not be treated like a nearly extinct species? And, granted, this story is not realistic - but in dystopian stories it should feel like it COULD be real - and I just didn't get that from this read.