Skylark by Megan Spooner {Review}

I'm terrible with library due dates &
forgot a pic before I returned it :P

Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab

Publish Date: August 1, 2012

Source: Library

Goodreads

Pages: 344

Series: Skylark #1

Rating: Direct Hit

Sixteen-year-old Lark Ainsley has never seen the sky.
Her world ends at the edge of the cast domed barrier of energy enclosing all that's left of humanity. For two hundred years the city has sustained this barrier by harvesting its children's innate magical energy when they reach adolescence.
When it's Lark's turn to be harvested, she finds herself trapped in a nightmarish web of experiments and learns she is something out of legend herself: a Renewable, able to regenerate her own power after it's been stripped.
Forced to flee the only home she knows to avoid life as a human battery, Lark must fight her way through the terrible wilderness beyond the edge of the world. With the city's clockwork creations close on her heels and a strange wild boy stalking her in the countryside, she must move quickly if she is to have any hope of survival. She's heard the stories that somewhere to the west are others like her, hidden in secret -- but can she stay live long enough to find them?

I've read a lot of just good and pretty meh books lately and let me tell you, Skylark was a breath of fresh air. This is the book I've been waiting for and silly me didn't pick it up until now.

Man, I just don't even know where to start because Skylark is just this explosion of awesomeness packed in between two covers. There's just enough action and suspense to keep me glued to the pages without being overwhelming. The little (and big) mysteries of the world and the story are subtly weaved in so it doesn't feel like the reader is constantly being bombarded with THIS IS A MYSTERY AND IT'S A MYSTERY SO I WON'T TELL YOU WHAT IT IS YET.

And oh my gosh, the twists. Yeah, I didn't see any of them coming. Well, there might be one, but I don't really think Spooner was hiding it from the reader, only Lark. It was so nice to actually not know what was going to happen which has been the case with most of my reads lately.

I'm not going to lie, it was kind of a lot to take in at first, but I got into the groove of the world after a bit and loved it. It's absolutely nothing like anything I've read before. I love the idea of magic being some kind of natural resource. And, as with any limited supply of anything, the government has complete control over it. So the magic isn't for personal use, instead, the city uses it to power itself. And we're talking everything from their artificial sun to little “pixies” which fly on their own and serve kind of as a police alarm (can that be a thing). I don't really want to spoil anything, so I'll just say that I found the pockets of magic fascinating (read it and you'll know what I mean ;])

And boy, does Spooner have a way with characters. I fell in love with all of them. Well, besides a certain guy (no, I didn't even like him from the moment he was introduced) and the rest of the evil city people.

Lark was stubborn and scared and realistic. She had some serious trust issues so I wanted to shake her and be like “just trust them!” but I can't exactly fault her for it. I wouldn't trust anything or anyone after what she'd been through either.

Ohmygosh, Nix. I liked it (always thought of it as a her for some reason) from the moment it entered the story. I can't really say much about it since 1) it's kind of confusing and 2) it's a little spoilery.

Oh, Oren. Despite all the reasons he wasn't to be trusted I just kept thinking “Lark and Oren 4evah.” He's such a complex and wonderful character. Talk about a tortured soul (not in the usual way, though. Ponder that one!)

The Nutshell: Basically, I could go on and on about Skylark so you should just trust me on this one and go read it. I mean it has magic, complex characters, twists you'll never see coming (unless you're the master of figuring things out), and a world that you've probably never seen the likes of before.