Poster Girl

By: Veronica Roth

Narrated by: Anna Caputo

Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

For fans of Anthony Marra and Lauren Beukes, number one New York Times best-selling author Veronica Roth tells the story of a woman's desperate search for a missing girl after the collapse of the oppressive dystopian regime—and the dark secrets about her family and community she uncovers along the way.

What's right is right.

Sonya Kantor knows this slogan—she lived by it for most of her life. For decades, everyone in the Seattle-Portland megalopolis lived under it, as well as constant surveillance in the form of the Insight, an ocular implant that tracked every word and every action, rewarding or punishing by a rigid moral code set forth by the Delegation.

Then there was a revolution. The Delegation fell. Its most valuable members were locked in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city. And everyone else, now free from the Insight’s monitoring, went on with their lives.

Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has been imprisoned for 10 years when an old enemy comes to her with a deal: find a missing girl who was stolen from her parents by the old regime, and earn her freedom. The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, crooked post-Delegation world where she finds herself digging deeper into the past—and her family’s dark secrets—than she ever wanted to.

With razor sharp prose, Poster Girl is a haunting dystopian mystery that explores the expanding role of surveillance on society—an inescapable reality that we welcome all too easily.

©2022 Veronica Roth (P)2022 Audible, Inc.

Dystopian allegory, well done

If you like books like Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and Gattica, this book is for you. Set at some future time of societal breakdown, it presents a dystopian future with people divided into largely two classes. I won't spoil the set up by delving into that more, but I thought the world building was solid, and the character development was good, and the narration was excellent. I enjoyed this one very much.

Would listen again

Captivating book awesome author I enjoyed every minute of it. I would read it again.

Interesting

A good listen. Thanks Interesting story well delivered. I will look at for books by this author and narrator.

Excellent narration and captivating story about connectedness gone berserk

I wish this story would continue!

The core story is about what could go wrong when wearables turn implantables and what could go even more wrong when the pendulum would swing back from there. But there is so much more: the main character is so relatable and well developed and there is so much brilliant material that could be expanded upon, it’s really hard to stop listening to this story and to the superb narration.

Just okay

For the story: I didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. It was a good idea, but I think it was lacking some things. It didn’t make me feel anything. I would have liked to have more information on the Delegation to contextualize people’s hatred of it more; there is obviously the constant surveillance, and some murders, but it didn’t feel like enough. There were several moments that were too convenient, sort of “deus ex machina” type stuff. Even aside from that though, something about the writing was just not quite there for me.
As far as the narrator, I don’t think she was a good choice for this one. She didn’t really “fit the role,” you know? Not edgy enough, I guess.

Hard to get through

This book is hard to get through and I kept stopping and going to other stuff to listen to and coming back to it only to quit after a bit.
The over use of “she said” “he said” after almost every line of dialogue about drive me crazy, and the narrator made it hard to listen to.

Narrator

Great story, but the narrator’s lisp was really distracting. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this book

Engaging and reflective story

the relation of the Insight to today's gadgets; fit bit watch etc is not lost on the reader

unlikable main character

If you're here because you were a fan of Divergent and are looking for something similar with adult characters, you will be disappointed. Nothing about this main character was likable to me. I genuinely didn't care what happened to her or anyone else in this novel, and therefore it was really difficult to feel engrossed in this story. I found myself zoning out constantly and really having to force myself to pay attention. The novel itself read like a slow-paced YA story with the word "f*ck" thrown in every few pages to make it sound more adult. There is very little excitement in this book. The narrator also makes the main character sound like she's still 17, even though she's supposed to be in her late 20s. I got this as a 2-for-1 deal, otherwise it wouldn't have been worth the credit.

Little bit preachy, but still very good.

In the same vein as her Divergent books, this is about a young female character finding her way through a world post dystopian revolution, or two. It's a good story, and the character is well rounded, not too naive nor too jaded. There is the usual Roth love interest, not over done. Some of the minor plot features trickle out as the book goes on to keep the story going, it's not a complicated story per se, it's mostly about the progress of Sonya along her quest to find a missing girl, and the revelations about her family this journey brings to light. Well narrated.