Variant by Robison Wells

Title/Author: Variant (Variant #1) by Robison Wells
Publisher/Date published: HarperTeen, October 4th 2011
How I got this book: received it from the publisher thought NetGalley

Goodreads summary: "Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life.
He was wrong.
Now he’s trapped in a school that’s surrounded by a razor-wire fence. A school where video cameras monitor his every move. Where there are no adults. Where the kids have split into groups in order to survive.
Where breaking the rules equals death.
But when Benson stumbles upon the school’s real secret, he realizes that playing by the rules could spell a fate worse than death, and that escape — his only real hope for survival — may be impossible."

This is gonna be a hard review to write, because I had such mixed feelings while reading this book! I almost pulled a DNF on this one, but slowly it got slightly better and the last part I really enjoyed. But I think it took about 250 pages before I started enjoying it and I'm kinda proud of myself I didn't stop before then.

The main problem I had was the narrator's voice. I didn't really like Benson and it took until the very end for me to warm up to him. He'd been to a lot of stuff, but I didn't feel the least bit inclined to feel sorry for him. And a huge part of it is that he kept complaining A LOT about being in the school.

I mean, I get it sucked when you had expected something completely different, BUT I felt all he did was complain about it and not really being constructive in his wanting out. And the whole thing with there being 3 different gangs at a sort of war with each other didn't really work for me either, though I'm not really sure why.

I did like the ending scenes, it got really tense there and exciting! I think this book was a bit too much build-up for me, because once we got to the part about what was really going on, I found myself eagerly turning the pages! It ended at a huge cliffhange rand I'm wondering how we'll go from there and what exactly is up with that school!

Rating this is kinda hard, but as it was an almost DNF and I didn't end up loving it in the end...
My rating: 2,5 stars