the Murder Complex

the Murder Complex
Author: Lindsay Cummings
published by: Greenwillow Books
released: June 10th, 2014
my rating: 3 out of 5 stars












Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?

I really wanted to love this book and was almost sure I would when I picked it up. But instead of absolutely blowing my mind, this book was just... OK. The idea and main plot really amazed and intrigued me but it was just executed poorly. It wasn't bad or anything but since I thought this was going to be an amazing book, I was disappointed.

The beginning of the book was definitely the worst part of the book for me. There were only a few explanations concerning the world they live in and even though thats the case in a lot of books I felt like the author had to work out the details herself while writing. This may not have been the case at all, but thats just what I thought while reading it.

The main characters also bothered me while reading. The book jumps between Meadow's and Zephyr's POV every chapter, which wouldn't be a problem, but some chapters were only two or three pages long and their thoughts sounded so similar, I got confused to who the narrater was once or twice.

Reading about their thoughts and emotions was a little like watching the story play out from behind a screen. Don't get me wrong, I liked their characters, they just didn't seem to have a lot of depth.    Especially Meadow seemed to have only few to no feelings or emotions at all. I get that she's supposed to be really tough but that doesn't mean she can't show any sort of emotions.
This bothered me in particular when she learns about some major secrets, because she just accepts everything she finds out without being surprised at all which lead to me not feeling particular wowed by the plot twists either. Zephyr is similar in the beginning, but I feel like his character got better with time.

For a moment it seemed like there would be Insta love which would have made me really mad, but that luckily wasn't the case.

But even though, I feel like this book has a lot of flaws the storyline still made me like this book. This certainly isn't the average dystopian world and it definitely has a lot of blood and violence. I did really like some of the side characters, especially Peri and Talan and overall I felt like the book got gradually better. I can definitely see why lots of people love this book but I didn't love it and I'm not sure yet if I'll continue with this series.