'The 100' Book Review

Book: The 100 (First of it's series) 

Genre: Dystopian, Sci-fi, Young Adult

The 100 Book Review 

I’ll start of by saying that yes, I watch the show! Rather religiously actually though I go through stages where I’m dying to see the next episode and other stages when I’m not all that bothered. (Sidenote: Season 2 not quite doing it for me.)

Okay, that being said, I really enjoyed this book, so much so that I read the second one pretty much straight away. I would be reading the third book right now but I am currently on a self-inflicted book ban – I own far too many books that I haven’t read yet, so Homecoming is going to have to wait.

In both of the books, the story is told from a third person perspective but tells four separate stories – though three of the people are interlinked so sometimes it seems a little pointless. These four characters are of course Clarke, Bellamy, Wells (who are all in the TV Show) and Glass who for some unknown reason that I cannot figure out is not in the show. She is by far my favourite character in the series.

The books begin set in space because the Earth is unsafe to live on and covered in radiation, the ark was sent up 300 years ago or something similar.  On the ark there are three sub-sections, a hierarchy if you will, which ultimately makes no sense to me. Why would a ship that has been sent into space in order to save the human kind have different sections of class? Why would labels, money (or in this case ‘ration points’) matter? It’s not explained well enough for me for there to be a reason behind this. The only theory I have that works in my head is that the ark was never designed like that and it’s just changed and adapted over time, but still this doesn’t sit well with me. The sub-sections all have names ‘Phoenix, Arcadia and Walden’ which are seriously underdeveloped also.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly intrigued by life on the ark (even if I don’t necessarily believe the realism of a hierarchy) and I would even be quite happy to read a book or prequel about the lives of the people on the ship. However, there is no development with these books and that is my main issue. Morgan lacks on the details and sometimes that can be grating. From my understanding and interpretation ‘Phoenix’ is the rich section of the ark, our characters Clarke, Wells (the Chancellors son) and Glass are all a part of this section. Through their back stories we learn that the three can choose whatever career they want and have a higher amount of ration points compared to the rest of the sections. Warden, I am interpreting to be the poorest of the sections since this is where Bellamy is from. Bellamy who is one half of the only siblings allowed on the ark due to their one child policy (smart move) and is an orphan. Whilst all three of the sections are severely underdeveloped, Arcadia gets next to nothing. I couldn’t really tell you anything about Arcadia since none of our main characters lived there and there are next to no details within the book. Which if you’re like me and find this perplexing hierarchy ordeal rather interesting is seriously annoying.

To continue; a 100 teenagers who have been confined for a crime they have committed are being sent to Earth to see if it is liveable, all of our characters have a reason for being confined and luckily, Morgan actually shares on the details when it comes to this. We find out their reasons throughout the book and each chapter has a mixture of present day and flashbacks. As the 100 are being prepared to go back down to Earth, which is super top secret and nobody on the ark really knows about it, there is a bit of a scuffle. By scuffle I mean Bellamy who is sometimes awkwardly obsessed with his sister attempts to get on the mission to be with her. How does he do this? By shooting the Chancellor – smart move there, Bell. During this scuffle this is when our fourth character Glass makes a run for it and manages to stay on the ark, our only insight to life still on the ark which I think is a great feature that Morgan added in. She could have clearly had the book all about the 100 on the ground but chose against it. I personally find Glass’s story the most interesting in the first book.

The journey to the Earth is very blink and you miss it and within pages, the 100 are on the Earth dealing with the consequences. There is an eerie feeling throughout the book as Clarke realises that they have not been sent to Earth with enough food and medical supplies to last the 100 a long time, making her believe that they don’t intend for the mission to work.

Clarke is our sort of hero of the story and by that I mean, she’s our medical ‘expert’, I use that lightly since she was in training and got put into confinement before she could finish but of course she can do almost everything. Insert eye roll here. The small amount of medical supplies that the ark so generously sends them down with are thrown from the ship during the landing and Clarke intends to go hunting for them to treat the ill. Bellamy chooses to assist her, I can’t remember why but no doubt it’s something to do with his sister. His obsession is worse than the TV show in that aspect.

Wells is also struggling on the Earth as everyone kind of hates him since it was his father that put them all in confinement and ultimately sent them to Earth. Fair play, I think. Glass is still on the ark and goes in search of her one true love. A guy from Walden. What, you say! A girl from Phoenix falling for a guy from Walden. But there you go, her story pretty much revolves around this guy who isn’t even aware that she’s spent the last 9 odd months in a tiny room without human interaction and barely wants to talk to her because he’s too busy banging his best friend. Smooth. It’s frustrating as a reader because even though we don’t know why Glass has been confined at this point, you just know it’s going to be because of him or is connected to him in some way.

The majority of the 300 pages are about the 100 or rather Bellamy, Clarke and Wells getting used to the ground and dealing with teeny boppers with attitude problems whilst Glass despairs about her long lost love, who is not so lost anymore.

The books focus mainly on the romance and development of relationships – which normally is my favourite thing in a book – but in this context it falls flat. Yeah, I’m all for a little romance but I’m also for a story too, an in depth one at that. Morgan has a great concept here but fails to execute it in the best way. I don’t know what it is about this book because in the 300 pages that it is, I’m struggling to really tell you what happens. A whole lotta nothing. The book would really benefit from being double the length that’s for sure. Morgan also has such great ideas: the ark system, the history, the reasons for them being there, the reasons for them being sent down, the twists and the turns but they are all just solved within a matter of minutes or the details are completely forgotten. I don’t know, I feel like I need a book guide filled with information about the ark that would appease me.

If you’re looking for an extended episode of the TV show then head away to a different location because you won’t get anything here. The books and the show could not be more different. I enjoyed this book immensely (I would not have read the second book so quickly if not) but I made a conscious decision to separate the books from the show otherwise I was going to be continuously disappointed. 

The characters are rather different, Clarke is pretty similar but I feel like Bellamy in the TV show is a mix of his book character and the character Graham who basically provides the conflict for both Bellamy and Wells within the book. Wells is somehow, shockingly more annoying in the books and more selfish as he risks everyone’s lives on the ark in order to go down to Earth to be with Clarke who doesn’t even like him. I’m still not over the omission of Glass’s character; one of my issues with the show is the lack of ark and space in it (maybe that’s why I’m not enjoying season 2 as much?) I could easily watch another show all about their lives on the ark.

To conclude, I did thoroughly enjoy these books and they really did have me addicted within a few chapters however they also annoyed me a great deal. I just feel like Morgan could have done so much better. It’s like she sat at a computer, had this mind blowing idea, typed up a few words and went meh that will do. It will not do, Morgan! I need more than this. I need the details.

What am I saying though? I can yell about all the faults of this book and the second one but we all know I’m going to be reading the third one real soon. Good job, Morgan.