Review - The Loop (The Loop, #1) by Ben Oliver

Title: The Loop (The Loop, #1)

Author: Ben Oliver

Pages: 364

Publisher: Chicken House

Release Date: 2nd April 2020

Blurb from Goodreads:

Luka Kane will die in the Loop, a prison under the control of artificial intelligence. 

Delays to his execution are granted if Luka submits to medical experiments. Escape is made impossible by a detonator sewn into his heart. 

But on Luka's seventeenth birthday, life in the Loop is altered: the government-issued rain stops falling and rumours of unrest start to spread. Breaking out might be his only chance to survive... and to stop a catastrophe from deleting humankind.

 Goodreads | Amazon UK | Amazon US

My Review:

 

*I won an ARC of this book from Chicken House*

The Loop is a prison controlled by an artificial intelligence. Luka Kane has been imprisoned there for over two years. His death sentence is pushed back every time Luka agrees to a 'Delay' - a medical experiment that benefits the wealthy, but could mean death for Luka.

Nothing ever changes in the Loop, until one day rumours spread of unrest and a potential war on the outside.

Then the inmates find themselves alone in the Loop with limited power, but a chance to escape.

What has happened to the outside world?

Can Luka and his friends all escape the Loop? 

Are they actually safer where they are?

The premise of The Loop intrigued me, especially the idea of a prison run by an artificial intelligence. This is something that I can imagine happening in the future, which is a little scary, but not as scary as the medical experiments ('Delays'), which were awful. 

The energy harvests were an interesting concept, but again scary. They reminded me a little of how screams were used for energy in Monsters, Inc..

I don't particularly have any strong feelings about Luka. I liked that he was a bookworm and I did feel a bit sorry for him, but I feel that I could have connected with him a lot more than I did.

I liked the diversity of the characters, but none of them particularly stood out to me.

The plot was okay, but it didn't feel revolutionary or ground-breaking, and I did lose interest once or twice. Nothing that happened really surprised me, and I was nowhere near the edge of my seat, but I did enjoy some of the action.

There were some quite gory/violent scenes which I wasn't really expecting.

The writing style was easy to follow.

At this point in time, I don't think I will be continuing with this series as I'm not itching to find out what happens next.

I'm disappointed that I didn't enjoy this more.

This wasn't a bad book, but I wasn't as invested as I should have been.

Overall, this was an okay read that I did enjoy at times.