I received this book for free through Online Book Club in exchange for an honest review.
Ariet lives in a new world, isolated from the disease and wars of the Old World. Her routine is the same every day, save for when her whole family gets medical testing. Even this is fairly usual, though; that is, until she's kidnapped from her family and forced to become a breeder. Ariet has a unique gene that the Creators force her to carry on with a child. Thrust into a scary situation, she must marry and reproduce with a man she'd never met before, while her family believes her to be dead. If Ariet's child doesn't carry the gene, it - and she - may be terminated. Ariet must battle to find a way to survive in this vicious cycle of the breeding program. In a supposedly perfect new world, illusion is truly the only flawless piece of life.
I haven't had a lot of time lately, so this book was a nice way to ease back into reading. It was quite short: on my e-reader, a few more than 50 pages. Despite the length, I found that the plot was well thought out and as thorough as it could be in this space. The plot was intriguing and, of all the books I've read, original. Of course the future world has been written about many times, as have ravaged old worlds. What I found to be unique about this story is the breeding program within these worlds. It was written about with class; no erotica. Rather, the book focused on Ariet's feelings, thoughts, and emotions, as a good story should.
Although I was impressed by the details and quality of writing contained within these pages, there were a few things I found distracting when reading. I very much hate to find grammar or spelling errors within a book, because not only does it distract me from the content, but it seems as if the author didn't put enough care into finalizing the book before distributing it. I found the grammar to be used well, overall; however, I did find several spelling mistakes throughout. I don't think this is because Ashely Quigley doesn't know how to spell, but because her thoughts were flying faster than her fingers. I just think they should have been read over and corrected. I also found the word 'whilst' to be extremely distracting. In everyday language, everyone I've talked to says 'while'. In Breeders, however, I don't know if 'while' was mentioned even once. Every sentence that would normally have 'while', instead was replaced with 'whilst'. Every time I started to get into the story, a 'whilst' would pop out at me, surprising me out of my reading reverie.
I found that the characters in this book were very believable, which I love to see when I'm reading. Ariet's reactions all seemed in-character and expected, considering what she was going through. That's not to say I could predict every one; that would get rather boring. The man she had to breed with, Mason, also seemed to be a believable character. In his situation, which was both different yet very much the same as Ariet's, he handled himself as gracefully as he could. When thrust together, of course Ariet wouldn't trust him at first. What I liked about this story is that she eventually did trust and like - perhaps even love - him. Their relationship seemed very believable, which is necessary in a book, when every situation and location is different from real life. A reader needs some sort of normalcy in order to enjoy the book and really get into it.
Overall, I found that I liked this book. It was very short, but contained a great story. Quigley did a great job of packing an entire, thorough story into a small amount of pages. This is the first book in a trilogy. Would I read another? Perhaps. It would all depend on what other options I had open. I did like this book, but I didn't love it, partially because of the errors I mentioned before. I would give this book a rating of 3 stars. It was good, but nothing extraordinary. Readers who enjoy a quick read, surprising situations, and futuristic stories should read this book.
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