YA Books Podcast - Episode 49 - Varient

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Episode 49 - First Chapter review of Varient

https://www.amazon.com/Variant-Robison-Wells-ebook/dp/B004XVN1E4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1469072863&sr=1-1&keywords=variant#navbarVariant

Varient is written by Robison Wells and published by Harper Teen in October of 2011 283 reviews with a 4.2 star average

Here's the Amazon book description 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.

You can get the first two chapters on the Amazon preview. Here is chapter 1.

If you heard my interview with Robison, you know I loved this story. It kicks of very fast at the end of the first chapter and doesn't slow down except for a few short places for the reader to catch their breath. I give this story a hearty five stars to continue reading past the first chapter. If you've listened to the preceding two book reviews, I want to tell you that I finished "My Lady Jane" and thoroughly enjoyed it. I recommend the story with five stars. The characters are varied and endearing. I wanted to take the lot of them home with me for a big family dinner. To me it slowed down just a bit in the last ten minutes of the audio. but then, under it all, the story is a romance and it needed some romantic touches to tie the story up completely. I got used to the narrator after about an hour of the audio, and she only irritated me a few times after the first couple chapters.