Synopsis: Meet The Second Chance Institute (SCI): Earth’s benevolent non-profit by day, Thera’s totalitarian regime by night. Their motto: Because Everyone Deserves a Second Chance™. Reality: the SCI subjects Second Chancers to strict controls and politically motivated science experiments like Cleaving—forced lifetime union between two people who have sex.
Meet Kira Donovan. Fiercely loyal, overly optimistic, and ensnared by the promise of a full-ride college scholarship, Kira signs the SCI Recruit contract to escape memories of a tragedy that left her boyfriend and friends dead.
Meet Blake Sundry. Bitter about being raised in Exile and his mother’s death, Blake’s been trained to infiltrate and destroy the SCI. Current barrier to success? His Recruit partner—Miss Goody Two Shoes Kira Donovan.
Meet Ethan Darcton. Born with a defective heart and resulting inferiority complex, Ethan’s forced to do his SCI elite family’s bidding. Cleave-worthy Kira Donovan catches his eye, but the presiding powers give defect-free Blake Sundry first dibs.
Full of competing agendas, romantic entanglements, humor, twists and turns, daynight is Megan Thomason’s debut young adult dystopian novel and first in the daynight series.
Thoughts: Daynight was definitely a very imaginative and very creative book. It’s a Dystopian at it’s finest, that is for sure. I love how Megan created an alternative universe almost that is essentially earth, but yet completely different and way more controlled. I won’t lie, I was confused at first with how much was going on, but when the book gets going.. it really gets going and definitely hooks you in for the ride.
Our three main characters show up SCI/Thera for very different reasons. Kira will do anything for the full-ride scholarship she so desperately wants, so she agrees to go to SCI, but when she gets there it is nothing like she imagined. Blake knows all about SCI/Thera and is sent there to infiltrate it and bring it down from the inside. What he doesn’t expect is to find qualities in Kira that make him re-think his decisions. Then there’s Ethan, who’s fallen for Kira right from the beginning but he’s been born into an SCI elite family and he’s been born with a heart defect. Two things that keep him forcefully away from Kira. These three quickly see that there is so much more going on at SCI than any of them could have imagined.
It’s easy to see why Kira loved both Blake and Ethan… both boys are good-looking, protecting, and perfect in their own way. The world they live in is definitely dangerous and there is no mercy. I mean, if you have sex with someone, bang, that’s it… they’re your partner for life. I found myself leaning towards Ethan in this story though. When we meet Blake and get to know him I thought I was going to be all Blake but as you get to know him… he just felt ruthless to me and all for his cause versus looking out for Kira. Where with Ethan his love for Kira shines through everything as soon as they meet. This is one love triangle I definitely loved reading about.
Overall this book is very different and unique. The concept is original and actually quite scary at times. Some of the things in the book I couldn’t believe were happening and there were constantly twists that I wasn’t expecting. And, the ending makes you definitely want the next one.
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