@doctorfusionbebop: Some 17 y. o. chick named Dee Guerrera was just sent to Alcatraz 2.0 for killing her stepsister. So, how long do you think she’ll last?@morrisdavis72195: I hope she meets justice! She’ll get what’s coming to her! BWAHAHA!@EltonJohnForevzz: Me? I think Dee’s innocent. And I hope she can survive.WELCOME TO THE NEAR FUTURE, where good and honest citizens can enjoy watching the … citizens can enjoy watching the executions of society’s most infamous convicted felons, streaming live on The Postman app from the suburbanized prison island Alcatraz 2.0.
When seventeen-year-old Dee Guerrera wakes up in a haze, lying on the ground of a dimly lit warehouse, she realizes she’s about to be the next victim of the app. Knowing hardened criminals are getting a taste of their own medicine in this place is one thing, but Dee refuses to roll over and die for a heinous crime she didn’t commit. Can Dee and her newly formed posse, the Death Row Breakfast Club, prove she’s innocent before she ends up wrongfully murdered for the world to see? Or will The Postman’s cast of executioners kill them off one by one?
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thanks to ya books central and Gretchen McNeil for #murdertrending , this book was amazing a real page turner I could not put the book down , it was about the executions of society’s most infamous convicted felon’s streaming live on the postman’s app from an island suburbanized as a prison called Alcatraz 2.0 . but can Dee and her newly formed posse the death row breakfast club help prove her innocents or get wrongfully murdered with the world watching or will a cast of executioners sent by the postman him self kill them of one by one . Kind of like the hunger games but more violent and there murder’s , a lot of romance , twist and turn’s and suspense one of my new favorite book I would recommend this book to my friends and family LAURA8759 .
This was soooo good, I couldn’t put it down. So different from anything I’ve read, and it really takes a hold of the technology we have today and how it affects people.
My high-school-aged niece recommended this novel to me and it was a fun read from beginning to end even if it was not perfectly successful. McNeil ambitiously sets out to create a Hunger-Games-style-dystopian-kill-fest in modern day America. A reality TV star becomes president and decides to make justice profitable by creating a reality TV show in which people who have been condemned to death are put on Alcatraz 2.0 to be hunted down by flamboyant serial killers in a way reminiscent of The Running Man movie. There are occasional concerns raised by people about cruel and unusual punishment (all the convicted are tortured to death in horrific ways) but apparently neither Congress nor the Supreme Court shares those concerns. So—totally unbelievable premise, but if you put that aside, you are left with a fast-paced and entertaining story about some amazingly smart young adults who act in very dumb ways whenever the plot requires it.
We know from moment one that Dee, our heroine, is both innocent of the charge of killing her step sister and has been framed by someone involved in some way with the show. In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that the mysterious Postman who runs the show has a special beef with Dee, but Dee has more steel in her spine than most contestants and quite a bit of luck. She survives the first attempt to kill her and will go on to transform the game on the island.
Yet, that little bit of unbelievable stupidity also rears its head in that very first scene. Prince Slycer, the dully appointed murderer of Dee, is known for his many knives, yet Dee and the other prisoner on the island who encounters her, don’t bother to take any and arm themselves. Later Dee will search frantically for weapons, and I have to assume that every single reader is annoyed she left her weapon behind. It’s not the only time this happens and it was totally unnecessary.
As McNeil doles out the clues to what is happening, people keep dying for the thrill of the television audience. I’m sorry to say that that actually felt plausible—people tuning in to see executions. It’s clear that not all people believe this is really happening, but everyone apparently watches. Dee tries to get the captives to start banding together to defend themselves and it also becomes increasingly obvious that many of the people on the island were framed for their crimes.
I don’t want to give away the ending. This novel is an enjoyable adventure story and there were two important twists that totally surprised me. Just don’t think too hard about things and you’ll enjoy the ride.
This book should’ve been really scary and tingly yet somehow, in spite of several gratuitous grisly deaths, it felt tame, childish and undeveloped.
A completely shameless “repurposing” of The Running Man with whiffs of And Then There Were None, this story offers nothing new.
Lastly, the relentless political hammering was tiresome. If I want to be blasted by someone’s political leanings, whether I agree with them or not, I’ll head straight to the dumpster fire that Facebook has become, thanks very much.
I thought this was a great thriller, it really made me think about society and how corrupt the human mind can be.
For horror comedy fans–this book is for you!
This was an awesome book! It totally feeds into how social media works today, as well as having a great mystery to be solved that keeps you guessing until the very end! I totally agree with the synopsis about how it is similar to The Hunger Games, because I definitely got that feeling as I was reading about how the executions/murders were televised. So much of this story had all of McNeil’s perfect humor while fitting into what would make itself a great horror film, or as it also says in the synopsis above, a great TV series. All of the characters were were interesting, even the ones we didn’t get very long to know since they ended up being on the cutting block, literally.
The story had a lot of creative, unique bits to it, but also pulled in a lot of pop culture references. What is funny to me about some of those references is that while the teens in the story basically understood what movie it was from, they didn’t get all the specific details. I loved that, because so often teens may know of a movie or singer, etc., but it wasn’t actually something they’d watched themselves, so little details authors who are adults, like I am, might go over their heads. Like the scene from Zoolander that one of the “Painiacs” as Dee’s new friend Nyles has named them, is setting up for.
Of course, then there were some things that I felt surely Dee should have figured out earlier. Like the Postman, his identity, and how it could connect with her past. Especially since we got the whole story of it, something that she would really have been pretty well aware of. But then to make up for it, I also really like how the author was able to throw in feelings about current situations in the real world, without actually getting in there and naming specific people, which could alienate those who are possibly supporters of them. The way that she got those digs in was done in such a way that it reminds me of all the discussion I had in English classes about how that classic book has all those themes, that I always actually hated talking about. I mean, I just want to read for the story, and when I do my own writing, whether it is any good or not, I don’t know that I throw in hidden meanings or themes. But McNeil has layered it into the story in such a way that it totally makes me want to apologize to any English teacher I had in school that I might have rolled my eyes at (not to their faces, I was a good student) or been totally bored with the talk of that.
It was a page-turner, one that at certain points I had a lot of trouble putting down. Even to the point where I had promised myself to start going to bed at a normal time to get ready for school to start again, instead of staying up late reading.
The ending was superb, and definitely left it like a good horror movie would, open. Although I didn’t realize quite how open it was left until I saw a sequel posted on Goodreads as I was getting my review ready today.
Gretchen McNeil has been one of my favorite authors since I first read 3:59 and Ten. I highly recommend her books if you haven’t started yet! Also, don’t you love the cover of this one? And #DRBC!!