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REVIEW – Contributor (Contributor #1) by Nicole Ciacchella

March 5, 2014 by Jaime Leave a Comment

CONTRIBUTOR (CONTRIBUTOR #1)
By: Nicole Ciacchella
Publication Date: Originally January 1, 2012
Contributor (Contributor, #1)


Summary
When the Great Famine threatened the existence of mankind, the Creators saved humanity. Humanity has been their loyal subject ever since.

This history has been ingrained in seventeen-year-old Dara Morrow since her first day of Creator-sponsored school. Grateful for the life-giving necessities her Creator provides, Dara is thrilled to be one of three students chosen for an elite, year-long apprenticeship program. Now is her chance to prove herself a devoted Contributor.

But Dara’s competition is ruthless and will stop at nothing to win the competition. Worse yet, her exacting master has little patience for her.


Then Dara’s mother is seriously injured, and Dara realizes the price of being a Contributor: once you’ve outlived your usefulness, you’re discarded. Can Dara learn to manipulate the system to save not only herself, but everyone she loves?

About Nicole
Nicole CiacchellaNicole also publishes under the pen names Elizabeth Darcy and Anne Wentworth.

Nicole has had a lifelong passion for the written word. As a child, one of her most treasured Christmas gifts was an electric typewriter, which enabled her to crank out her stories even more quickly than she could with a pen. Naturally, the personal computer is one of her favorite inventions. When she isn’t writing, Nicole can usually be found curled up in a chair, whiling away the hours with a good book.

One of Nicole’s other great passions is travel, and she has visited Europe, as well as traveling to many of the fifty states. Her favorite trips include visits to Paris, Maui, and various parts of Belgium. She feels fortunate that she is married to a native Belgian, as it gives her plenty of reasons to visit Europe as often as possible. Also, it gives her an excuse to eat Belgian waffles regularly.

Born and raised in Michigan, Nicole lives there still with her husband and two beautiful children. She thinks Michigan is the greatest state in the country, and Michigan State University is the greatest university in the world.
TWITTER/FACEBOOK/GOODREADS/WEBSITE

Erin’s Thoughts

Contributor by Nicole Ciacchella
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Contributor takes the reader into the life of Dara Marrow. As a seventeen year old, Dara is now being evaluated as an engineer and by performing well; she is selected to join a specialized apprentice program with two others to compete for the position of Assistant to the Head of Engineering. This is ultimately what Dara has been working her whole life for and being chosen is exactly what she was hoping for. Dara is assigned to work with Contributor D’Angelo (Letizia) and immediately dives into her training. Along the way, Dara’s competition for the assistant role become pretty cutthroat and after her mother has an accident and can no longer contribute, Dara begins to question everything she was ever taught.

One of things I wish we would have had a deeper dive into is the whole background of the dome and the class system. I thought the class segments were interesting and the explanation of how they aligned to society but what was confusing to me was how it all came to be. I wanted to know more about the different Creators and how things ultimately got to the situation where people were only valued if they were contributing to the success of the Creator.

Dara is definitely smart and as her relationship with Contributor D’Angelo changes, she begins to learn more about the Creator and even more about the things outside the dome. I thought Ciacchella did a great job developing her as well as the relationship between Dara and Contributor D’Angelo. By experiencing the shift in Dara’s beliefs, I was able to see just how much of a gap there was between her and Jonathan and although he was there for her when she needed him to be, she was smart to recognize that neither of them were going to be able to change their opinion, no matter how much they cared for each other.

I do wish we would have gotten more background around Mal. While he was just a peripheral character initially, he truly became someone that would ultimately hold Dara’s life in his hands. I’m still not sure what his background is and hope book two goes into more detail about who he really is. Additionally, I would have liked a bit more detail around how Letizia came to be involved with Raj, Mal, and Tasha. It felt a bit glossed over and other than saying they had different beliefs than those in the dome, I didn’t completely understand how they came to know each other.

Overall I thought this was a great introduction to Dara’s world. Even with the items I mentioned above, I thought that Ciacchella did a good job developing the main characters. The story was continually moving and had me turning the pages to see what was going to happen next. This was a solid book one and I am definitely looking forward to seeing what happens in book two and how much more Dara’s world will change.

Thank you to Netgalley & Sweenix Rising Books for the review copy.

View all Erin’s reviews

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Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Dystopian, GoodReads, Reviewed by Erin

About Jaime

Avid reader and book blogger, lover of music, writing, my kid & my cats. Master of sarcasm and snark and doing what makes me happy.

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