The Diseased Ones (The Hollis Timewire Series #1) by Danielle Harrington

The Diseased Ones by Danielle Harrington

My Rating: ★★★

I received a copy from Acorn Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It’s 2647 and Hollis Timewire has been waiting her entire life to finally enter society. Living in a world where people with superpowers and human emotion have been eradicated, all she has to do is take one simple blood test on her sixteenth birthday to prove she’s just an average person. Once she passes, she can start her first work assignment and become an official citizen. Unfortunately for Hollis, there’s just one major problem: she just failed the test and it turns out she’s one of the so-called diseased ones.

I think that this book has an interesting premise. I’d love to find out more about how the society Hollis grew up in became so devoid of emotions. It seems like such a bleak world to live in, especially if you’re one of the people who are full of life, emotions, and superpowers that make one a moving target. I would imagine it was hard for Hollis to keep as emotionless as possible for her entire life when it’s not something that comes naturally to her.

While I loved the premise, I found that I didn’t care for Hollis. I understand why she doesn’t believe her newfound family and friends. It would be extremely difficult to find out that your entire upbringing and everything you’ve ever believed was a lie. However, I found it difficult to believe that she’d flip flop from one extreme to the next at the level she does at the end of the book. I feel bad for her, but I didn’t care for her as a character.

That said, I loved the characters at the superpower filled society she lives with for majority of the book. I found them far more interesting and multi-dimensional compared to Hollis, which made me wish that this book had at least two different narrators. I think that there is so much to this world but that it’s stifled by being viewed purely through a confused and close-minded point of view. Not that I blame Hollis. She’s trying to overcome a lifetime of brainwashing, which is difficult to do, especially when you don’t have any family or friends from your old life to support you along the way.

Ultimately, it’s not a bad book. There’s a great story in there and I do want to see where it goes from here. I just found myself wishing that we saw more after seeing how vibrant the other characters are in addition to the world that Hollis never knew existed. It was interesting to see glimpses of the cast of characters and their backstories. It’s something I hope to see more of in addition to the story unfolding on a larger scale as the series continues.