Rated by Melissa Grey
Societies thrive on order, and the Rating System is the ultimate symbol of organized social mobility.
The higher it soars, the more valued you are. The lower it plummets, the harder you must work to improve yourself. For the students at the prestigious Maplethorpe Academy, every single thing they do is reflected in their ratings, updated daily and available for all to see.
But when an act of vandalism sullies the front doors of the school, it sets off a chain reaction that will shake the lives of six special students -- and the world beyond.
I have to say that this book was not dystopian. At all. This is no Hunger Games.
The settings were well-developed, and the juxtaposition of a system so jarring with a world that we’ve all seen made it quite interesting.
Rated uses the idea of an underground social/government revolution as a vessel to explore societal issues, and I found it oddly endearing. The whole “main plot” is surrounding the act of vandalism and suspicious messages that are sent to the six main characters. It does not, however, serve as the focus of the story. Melissa Grey uses the messages to tie these characters together, and then examines how they deal with each other and the problems in their own lives.
I particularly loved Bex. She’s the one who’s winning at the game, but she starts to realize that it’s just that: a game. Her character arc is wholesome, if somewhat predictable and stale. On the other hand, Javi, a Latino professional e-gamer, is fresh and just as wholesome. While the writing felt a bit clunky at some points, the characters were sweet and lovable. From tough boy Chase to emo Noah to struggling Hana, everyone felt real. The best way to describe this is a TV show type setup, where a loose overarching plot keeps everyone tied together, but everyone has their own lives going on as well.
Parts of the book were cheesy and predictable, and the ending was strange to say the least. Still, the way that Melissa Grey took the reader through the lives of these six characters was interesting and new. While it definitely could have been much better, I did enjoy several aspects of the book.
The higher it soars, the more valued you are. The lower it plummets, the harder you must work to improve yourself. For the students at the prestigious Maplethorpe Academy, every single thing they do is reflected in their ratings, updated daily and available for all to see.
But when an act of vandalism sullies the front doors of the school, it sets off a chain reaction that will shake the lives of six special students -- and the world beyond.
I have to say that this book was not dystopian. At all. This is no Hunger Games.
The settings were well-developed, and the juxtaposition of a system so jarring with a world that we’ve all seen made it quite interesting.
Rated uses the idea of an underground social/government revolution as a vessel to explore societal issues, and I found it oddly endearing. The whole “main plot” is surrounding the act of vandalism and suspicious messages that are sent to the six main characters. It does not, however, serve as the focus of the story. Melissa Grey uses the messages to tie these characters together, and then examines how they deal with each other and the problems in their own lives.
I particularly loved Bex. She’s the one who’s winning at the game, but she starts to realize that it’s just that: a game. Her character arc is wholesome, if somewhat predictable and stale. On the other hand, Javi, a Latino professional e-gamer, is fresh and just as wholesome. While the writing felt a bit clunky at some points, the characters were sweet and lovable. From tough boy Chase to emo Noah to struggling Hana, everyone felt real. The best way to describe this is a TV show type setup, where a loose overarching plot keeps everyone tied together, but everyone has their own lives going on as well.
Parts of the book were cheesy and predictable, and the ending was strange to say the least. Still, the way that Melissa Grey took the reader through the lives of these six characters was interesting and new. While it definitely could have been much better, I did enjoy several aspects of the book.
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