Book Review: To the Death by Melissa Welliver
Genre: Dystopian Romance
Age: Young Adult
Format: ebook
Astrid lives on the aptly named ‘Blood Island’, where zombies roam and the inhabitants are filmed, occasionally given prizes, by Bloodwatch, who have installed cameras across the island and encourage the people living there to engage with them through influencer packs. Bloodwatch arrive with a proposal: a competition, across the island, with the winner granted a way back to the mainland and to safety.
This one was okay, but it felt like it could have done with a fair bit of tidying up. A lot is repetitive, with challenges set for the contestants, made up with half island inhabitants and half mainlanders, who all have their own reasons for wanting to leave their relative safety and engage in the competition.
It might hit stronger with younger readers who aren’t as familiar with the inspirations behind this. If you are more familiar with things like Hunger Games or a lot of the zombie media that came out in the late 00s, there’s nothing particularly new here. The contestants have the potential to be interesting, but mostly felt a bit cliché and lacked depth. Like I said, it is repetitive, and goes around in circles quite a lot – it would have been stronger with tighter editing, and just by being shorter.
There is a romance subplot, but although it starts off decently, it starts to feel lacking, and becomes one of the weaker parts of the book.
Overall, a fun read, enjoyable to a point, but nothing that particularly stands out about it.
Review by Elle Turpitt
Twitter: @elleturpitt
Bluesky: @elleturpitt.bsky.social
I received this ebook from Hodder Children's Books via NetGalley for review consideration.
