Review ~ Carrier by Vanessa Garden

Carrier
by Vanessa Garden

Publishing date: March 1st 2014
Publisher: Escape Publishing

Book Description:

For fans of The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games comes a YA novel about freedom, choice and family — and the terrifying disease that makes them mutually exclusive.

From the day she was born, Lena has viewed the world through the jagged window of a razor-wired fence. The hundred-acre property she shares with her mother in the Australian outback may keep her safe from the Y-Carrier disease, but it is no longer enough to hold Lena’s interest, and her mother’s increasingly tight grip on her free will is stifling.

Just as her curiosity blooms and her courage rises, she meets a boy through the fence — the first boy she has ever laid eyes on. His name is Patrick and he comes with a dangerous yet irresistible invitation of adventure beyond the fence, an invitation to which Lena cannot say no.

But Lena’s newfound freedom is short-lived and she soon discovers that the Y-Carrier disease is not the only enemy she faces on the outside. Her new enemies want something Lena has, and they are willing to do anything to get it...

When I started reading Carrier, I definitely didn't think there was a possibility of me not liking it. With reading Vanessa Garden's debut novel Captivate a while ago, which I absolutely loved, and with a great promise "For fans of The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games comes a YA novel about freedom, choice and family", I really wasn't expecting to be disappointed by Carrier, but I was. Maybe I was lead by assumption that this book will include zombies and that it will be action packed or maybe I just set to high expectations. Either way, the truth is this book didn't deliver what was promised.

Set in a dystopian world in Australian outback, Lena is spending her whole life cut from the rest of the world surrounded with razor-wired fence, her only friends her two dogs. Then one night, something happens and her mother shuts into herself. Lena meets a boy, Patrick, and decides to leave her home and set on adventure, not caring about the danger that Y-Carrier disease brings and that she could get killed.

Where to begin? The worldbuilding in this novel was poorly done, and while we did get some of our questions answered, mostly all of it was done in the end of the book by a paranormal twist which you could see coming from the beginning. I feel like this novel could go without the paranormal and it was unnecessary to bring it into the novel. Actually, the last 20% of the book didn't make any sense at all, and the ending just made everything even worse.

I couldn't connect with any of the characters, actually I don't know if I can say anything about them except that I didn't really get them, or their actions for that matter, and that I couldn't see any development in them. For some of the characters I don't know why they even appeared in the story. The romance was very insta, with not much development in that area either. Lena sees a boy for the first time, I guess that means she's in love, the same goes for Patrick too.

With all said, I am very sorry I didn't like Carrier as I really loved Vanessa Garden's debut, but I guess this just means that we can't like every book we read, even if it's a book by an author whose work we liked previously.