I thought this was an okay book, but not brilliant.

The fact that this forms a continuing plotline explains the somewhat abrupt ending, and the fact that the story switches direction in the final third, revolving around Olivia and Joshua taking part in a series of initiation tests. I didn't realise until I finished this book that it is the first in a series, and I may try the follow-up novels, Moirai and Isaura. It also becomes apparent that everyone wants to use Olivia to their own ends. So, soon Olivia is busted out of jail, and she and Joshua are forced to go on the run into the wastelands, and a large amount of the book involves them going from one settlement to another, while avoiding the government that want them dead. Apparently, Olivia also has the capability to get pregnant naturally. It turns out that in this future version of Earth, it is supposedly impossible for a woman to conceive a child except by a kind of lottery, so a natural birth has made the people realise there is another way, and the rulers don't like it. However, she is almost immediately arrested because, it turns out, she was the product of a natural birth. The novel's heroine is Olivia Parker, who is effectively forced into marriage with a young man called Joshua. The fact that the characters lived in a town that formed a safe haven in the middle of a barren wasteland gave me some idea where they would end up very soon.

It seems to have a number of dystopian science fiction novel clichés. This book was a blind read, based on a recommendation I received.

Aberrant by ruth silver