Seen by Lori Nelson – Review by Helen Dawkins

Seen by Lori Nelson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have neutral feelings towards this book. I feel like the storyline itself was pretty good, but the writing style was a little hard for me, a lot of it seemed forced, stiff and underwhelming. “Seen” by Lori Nelson is a dystopian science fiction. The story is full of mystery, family drama, with a sci-fi background. During the book, the viewpoint switches between Mouse and her older brother Meph. I wanted to love this book so badly, but I just couldn’t. One of my biggest issues being that I could not really picture the dystopian world or understand either of the characters mindsets. Personally, to me, it read as spoiled brats just wanting to do whatever they wanted. While I can understand them not wanting anything to do with their father due to his actions, it just didn’t describe that being their reasoning in any manner.

Mouse is wanting to become a journalist and is interning for a newspaper that is located in a not so safe part of the city. Within the first few pages the action immediately starts with a traumatic situation that Mouse and her brother experience. Then later on, Mouse witnesses something that will forever change her, and her viewpoint of her family. This will set the tone for the remainder of the book.

There is more going on than meets the eye, lots of background subplots happening. The characters themselves were well developed (with the exception of their thought process/mindset). Their personality types were very well shown, as well as their flaws and quirks. I think the storyline itself was excellent, and pretty unique.

There are some triggering topics such as, abuse, graphic violence, gore, murder, emotion abuse, betrayal, assault, manipulation, kidnapping and attempted rape.

While I personally didn’t love the book, I still think it is worth others reading and finding out for themselves if they enjoy the writing style. I will recommend this book to others based off the unique storyline.

View all my reviews