On a Clear Day

Re-rating this because after some thought, the book didn't really have a cohesive storyline?! Like, they're trying to take down a big evil corporation thing and a terrorist, but, like, things happen but it not really. I felt lost most of the time and kept asking, "What just happened?" I thought that this would be a great read to have some diversity included in it, but they came off rather stereotypically. Not good. I've heard that this author's past works are WAY better, so it's not like I'm never going to give his novels another shot... But dang, like, publishers... please care about cohesive storylines. It's important!

DNF at 20%. <br /><br />Walter Dean Myers's last completed* YA novel before he passed away at age 76. Ambitious dystopian scope with too-large ensemble of same-ish rogue characters, all with several pages of biographical details combined with next-to-no actual characterization. Does it seem like I read the whole book? Well, I didn't. I read just to the point where I was more interested to see if the story would ever got any better, so I bailed to a review section that told me universally that it wouldn't. Then I bailed to Myers's 1999 book <i> <b>Monster</b> </i>, which was the first recipient of the Printz Award.<br /><br />Walter Dean Myers has over 100 published books. This is not one of the better ones. If you're looking for late-period Myers, two better options are 2013's <i> <b>Darius and Twig</b> </i> and 2010's National Book Award finalist <i> <b>Lockdown</b> </i>.<br /><br />-<br /><br />* = It was published two months after his death. Whether it was fully "completed" or still a work in progress is debatable.

I REALLY wanted this to be good.<br /><br />But I started reading-with-reluctance when I got to the following line on page 104: <br />"It was guy stuff, but it sounded good."<br />srsly.<br /><br />Myers was a lovely person, and an amazing advocate for teens and reading. I REALLY wanted to like this book.<br /><br />But the main character is supposed to be a math whiz. Her special role in the group is to create models to predict the behavior of world powers (the connection between these two things is not explained, just assumed). And the quote above about guy stuff was in reference to strategizing against an enemy. This does not make sense. But maybe that's because I'm not a guy?<br />::deep breaths -- cut the snark, Raina::<br /><br />The romance was half-hearted (I really wanted something to develop with Anja, and that's not entirely bc of my own bias). The logic of the world was flawed.<br />I got excited when he started off with biocremation, but there was no followthrough on the sci-fi coolness. Most of the book feels much more contemporary. To the point where, when the protagonist doesn't understand the concept of a landline near the end, it was jarring and I fell out of the book.<br />I loved the diverse cast, but found many of the characters stereotypical. <br />And I think he missed an opportunity by having the whole thing narrated by just one of the people on the team.<br /><br />Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.<br /><br /><br />Extra star bc Myers + Effort + WeNeedDiverseBooks.

<p>Absolutely nothing in this book made sense to me. At all.</p><br /><p>The characters hardly know eachother as well as can't stand eachother, yet throughout the book it's played off as if they've all known eachother for years? What? How does Dahlia magically know all these things about everyone when they've hardly spent any time together? "So and so is very ___" How does she know this? How are we supposed to know this? You would also think with the characters being randomly grabbed by their awful ringleader that they would all have different skills used in whatever case they're doing (which I couldn't decipher at all at any point) but no. It's just "What do you think this means, guys?" Come ON.</p><br /><p>I also don't know WHAT they were doing the ENTIRE TIME. Absolutely NOTHING was explained, yet somehow characters kept saying "everything is starting to make sense!" Is it really? No. It's not. All you get from the start is "we're young people and we're gonna make a difference! We're gonna shut this corporation down!" Somehow they have a meet up in Europe with biker Nazis, but they never reappear again and I wonder, what was the point of that? They go to "gather information". What information? What THING are you even looking into information FOR? There's no reason given, no explanation, no plot point. Just "getting information". </p><br /><p>Then there's this stuff with Sayeed, who's labelled a terrorist, and they meet up with him too, but you can't tell if he's supposed to be a good resource for them to band forces with or another bad guy to "get information" from. Somehow a farm pill is involved, somehow Sayeed wants (or doesn't want? WE JUST DON'T KNOW!) something to do with it, and the characters suddenly need to put a stop to him. I don't have a clue what anyone in any of the three parties were supposed to do, what their mission was. Nothing. Somehow it ends with Sayeed's hired army getting killed (from what? from who? WHAT?) and two characters get fixed up in a car. Then they return to their normal lives. Somehow they saved or destroyed a company that was or was going to be associated with C-8. I seriously don't have a clue.</p><br /><p>Also, what was the thing with constantly, not just as a description, but THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE BOOK, every person of color's race is mentioned eighteen hundred times? What is Dahlia's obsession with calling Mei-Mei a porcelain doll? I couldn't stand it! Not to mention Mei-Mei is supposed to be a smart young woman and an important part of their team, a master of chess, yet she's treated by Dahlia like she's as dumb as a stump and the only thing interesting about her is how much she "looks like a porcelain doll". Ugh! </p><br /><p>So, in conclusion, absolutely no character development, and a SERIOUS lack of explanation on ANY kind of task in this book. The only reason I finished was because it was short and I willed myself to power through. Since this is the author's last book, it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was actually nowhere near complete when published. There are a couple other books of his I was interested in reading, which appear to be a lot more well liked. However, this just wasn't very good. </p>

<i>Received an ARC from coworker who attended ALA in Las Vegas.</i><br /><br />The Goodreads synopsis states this story is set in 2035. I must have missed that little fact being shared within the story itself. It was apparent that the story was set in the future but it was never clear to me how <i>far</i> into the future or even if it was post-apocalyptic, dystopic or just a prediction of what is to come.<br /><br />The back of the ARC has a synopsis that was misleading: “Ex-rocker Michael gathers together an ex-con, a chess prodigy, an ex-athlete, a do-gooder, a soldier wannabe, and computer whiz Dahlia. Enter Sayeed, terrorist.” Yes, Michael gathered these folks together. But Sayeed was not part of the group! And the blub does contain an accurate description of the characters … kind of. Drego being an ex-con was never really clear from the text; his being connected to gangs was clear but does that make him an ex-con? Tristan was supposed to be the soldier wannabe … I think. I would hardly use “ex-athlete” to describe Javier who the text stressed was an aspiring lawyer prior to the car accident that added the term “wheelchair user” to his life.<br /><br />Aside from the misleading blurb, the characters were just blah. So much could have been done with Dahlia and Mei-Mei’s dislike for one another, just as so much could have been done with Dahlia and Anja’s friendship. The “love spark” between Michael and Dahlia was irrelevant, extraneous, and just muddied the already confusing plot.<br /><br />So, the characters were never fully fleshed out, the timing of the events in the book was completely unclear (until I went to go write my Goodreads review!) and, sadly, I never understood what in the hell the damn characters were trying to accomplish. Were they trying to overthrow the ruling corporations? Inform the public? Stop a conspiracy? Oh … wait … there is that whole terrorist thing mentioned on the blurb. Sayeed was NOT a terrorist in the sense that our current society thinks of terrorists. If he was meant to be, he never got there. I felt like he was a pussy cat trying to make himself at home among lions.<br /><br />I just wanted to cry as I read this book. I told my husband that the only reason I was finishing it was because Walter Dean Myers had just died – and I just could not bring myself to believe that he had written something so bad. My only hope is that this ARC, unlike so many ARCs I read, truly was <i>advance</i> and had many forthcoming edits to bring the pieces together. Alas, unless a ghost writer takes WDM’s pieces and forms them into something better, this is going to be one big footnote in an otherwise amazing career. My only consolation is that, upon checking the author’s website, I learned that he has one more book coming out in 2015. I so hope that book lives up to his established reputation.<br />

Dahlia has always loved math — the numbers and formulas are dependable and help her understand the world even as things fall apart.<br /><br />The year is 2035. The C-8, eight huge businesses, control everything from food to health care. Not only do they control who has access to what, the profit margin for these companies determines what even comes into being. On the surface, that doesn’t mean much for the wealthy. They live in their suburban gated communities were everyone looks like them (white). They shop, they party and they plan. What very few of them do is see.<br /><br />Those like Dahlia who aren’t wealthy have no choice but to see. They have to keep their eyes open for the gangs roaming city streets. They also have to watch out for opportunities that are actually traps. The free tablets everyone was so happy to recieve? Once everyone was online and could access classes that way, the government had no reason to keep the schools open. There was simply no profit in it.<br /><br />Dahlia dreamed of becoming a teacher. She would be able to help kids like herself see the beauty of math. Now, there’s no point. No gater (gated communities) would pay her to teach their children.<br /><br />Then two boys show up in a van. From the van to their clothing, it is obvious that they have money. They may have money but they see. They see what C-8 is doing around the world — controlling who makes it in government, who has access to health care and who has food to eat. They are going to take on C-8.<br /><br />They tell Dahlia and that they need her help. They’ve read the paper she published in a math journal. They know she has the computer skills needed to help them predict what is going to happen next. They are putting together a team of young people who believe that they can make a difference and they want Dahlia to be a part of it. Before she can decide if she can make a different, Dahlia has to find the nerve to leave behind all she knows and trust two boys she’s only must met.<br /><br />This is one of the those books that is almost impossible to do justice in a review. It is rich and it is complicated. It is more gritty than lyrical but teen readers will love it because it is true. Walter Dean Myers was clearly an author who could see the dangers of big business, of the 10% and of the reliance that people place on the Web.<br /><br />I wouldn’t call this book post-apocolyptic but it is walks up close to the apocolypse and dares the reader to see how far they can see On a Clear Day.<br /><br />–SueBE

Myers' motley crew of teens takes on the capitalist corporations in this fast-paced novel set in the not-terribly-distant future. You can feel Myers' own anger at the inequalities destroying the fabric of civil society and his hope that young people can overcome inertia and despair to fight against the bill of goods we're being sold by people who mask their motives behind slick advertisements. <br /><br />I applaud Meyers' sentiments and I appreciated his kick-ass, math-whiz Dominican-American heroine a lot. I got a bit lost in some of the slang the characters use, but that's probably my age and sheltered existence showing. I found the story a bit rushed, though. I can understand that Myers didn't want to over complicate or make the book too thick (both physically and structurally) but I'd have liked more back story on the teens in the group. I'd like to have known how Michael found each member, for example. Still, I'd hand this book to any number of teens and can imagine some great discussions emerging. Pair it with FEED or with LITTLE BROTHER or SHIPBREAKER...

Okay, I adore Walter Dean Myers, he's genuinely one of my favorite authors, but I feel comfortable saying that this book is bad. The plot is strangely incoherent and absolutely fails to deliver on a fairly promising concept, the characters feel like they could've used a lot more development, and, to be honest, the world that this book presents is half-baked. Concepts that one would think are central to the story are given passing mentions and then never touched again.<br /><br />To be honest, this book is at its best when it feels like the other Walter Dean Myers that I've read, exemplified best by the scenes with one or two young people listening/talking to older people, mulling philosophy and reminiscing about the past. Unfortunately, portions of the book like that are few and far between, replaced with a very oddly written teen dystopia.<br /><br />The knowledge that this is one of Myers' last published novels before his passing does soften my opinion of it a bit, even if that's not quite relevant to its quality. Overall, this book is not as fun of a read as its premise would have you think.

This story was not at all fluid. It made little sense and was difficult to follow. I borrowed it from the library because it came up as a recommended book for those who liked Ready Player One. Well, for the record it is nothing like Ready Player One and the protagonist does not come across as genuine, and this is coming from an intelligent Hispanic female from the Bronx.

I thought I would have liked this a lot more than I actually did with how good the description was: all in all, a disappointment but a quick read.