Stung Review

Stung

Bethany Wiggins

Publisher: Bloomsbury

In a world in crisis, children are the future. Part of the cure. Not now. Children are deadly. Marked one to ten. Fiona is a TEN. She just doesn't know it yet . . . She doesn't know her true strength.
Fiona doesn't remember going to sleep. But she has woken to find her entire world has changed - her house is abandoned and broken, and her neighbourhood is barren and dead. Even stranger is the tattoo on her right wrist that she doesn't remember getting but somehow knows she must cover at any cost. And she's right. When the honeybee population collapsed, a worldwide pandemic occurred and the government tried to bio-engineer a cure. But instead the vaccination turned people into ferocious, deadly beasts. They have been branded as a warning to unvaccinated survivors. Key people needed to rebuild society are protected inside a fortress-like wall. Fiona has awakened branded, alone and on the wrong side of the wall 

What happens when the bees die out? The answer is the end of the world as we know it and the start of a dystopian nightmare for those who survive. When Fiona wakes up in her bed, she has no memory of the last four years but the world has changed rapidly with some people living in the sewers, beasts who were once people roaming the land and a select few living in relative safety behind the Wall. Fiona is lost, confused and doesn’t know what is going on...

Fiona may not know what is going on but she trusts people to easily and even manages to give her heart to a guy who has done nothing but assault her and keep her captive. I found myself getting very frustrated with her as she never really seems to fight for herself or even others. Added to which I found it difficult to imagine the whole country had changes so rapidly in just four years with people so quickly divided into levels and organised behind a wall. The character I was most intrigued by was Arrin/Arris and felt like they could have been explored more. There is much left unexplored and for once I feel that this story would have worked with a little more background – perhaps some other characters point of view to answer questions Fiona doesn’t even think to ask!

Stung is fast paced though and it was only once I put the book down and started to think about the world and the characters that I really had any problems. The plot is pacy and there are enough action scenes to keep most thrill readers happy. The romance was far too quick for my liking and not based on much substance but it wasn’t a focus of the plot so it wasn’t too distracting. This was an easy enough read but with choice of dystopian YA overwhelming there wasn’t anything that gripped me. Nice idea but I want a little more.

Recommended for fans of Veronica Rossi and Sarah Crossan. 7 out of 10