Synopsis:

A gripping, near-future thriller – The Hunger Games meets Station Eleven, for fans of pacey, disruptive TV, such as the Noughts and Crosses adaptation

Welcome to the Arcadia.

Once a luxurious cruise ship, it became a refugee camp after being driven from Europe by an apocalyptic war. Now it floats near the coastline of the Federated States – a leftover piece of a fractured USA.

For forty years, residents of the Arcadia have been prohibited from making landfall. It is a world of extreme haves and have nots, gangs and make-shift shelters.

Esther is a loyal citizen, working flat-out to have the rare chance to live a normal life as a medic on dry land. Nik is a rebel, planning something big to liberate the Arcadia once and for all.

When events throw them both together, their lives, and the lives of everyone on the ship, will change forever . . .

Sarah Daniels’ The Stranded has a nostalgic feel, a harkening back to the dystopian era YA books I couldn’t seem to get enough of ten years ago when The Hunger Games and Divergent were all the rage. And I didn’t mind the revisit one bit.

“By the end of this year, with any luck, I’ll be miles away before the worst winter storms come; I’ll be on dry land, sleeping in a warm room, with nothing to worry about but passing my first-year exams.”

Sarah Daniels, The Stranded

While it’s not perfect and it took me the first twenty percent of the book to learn all the characters, once I committed to the story, I was engaged and entertained. This one does have a slow build, but the pay off is worth the trek.

The reader gets the story of the stranded Arcadia from three different points of view: Esther, a sixteen year old medic student with the sole focus of getting herself and her boyfriend Alex off the ship; Nik, a young rebel working behind the scenes with his mother to overthrow the corrupt leadership; and Hadley, the corrupt leader. I enjoyed Esther and Nik’s points of view, but I found myself wanting to skim Hadley’s. Thankfully his chapters are mostly short and quick, but I personally would have preferred the book without his sections.