Review - Scored by Lauren McLaughlin

Scored by Lauren McLaughlin
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Published: October 25, 2011
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 240 pages
Format: Hardback
Source: Bought
Rating: 3/5
Author Site: Lauren McLaughlin

Set in the future when teenagers are monitored via camera and their recorded actions and confessions plugged into a computer program that determines their ability to succeed. All kids given a "score" that determines their future potential. This score has the ability to get kids into colleges, grant scholarships, or destroy all hope for the above.

I had a tough time with Scored. The subject matter was not so unbelievable and was actually pretty eerily where it looks like our future could be headed. Do I like it or believe it to be fair? No not at all but it's just the way things are and will be. I mean we're already "scored" in so many aspets of our lives.

But the actual problem I had with the book itself was I didn't like any of the characters and it just got a bit irritating having Imani and Diego debate who was right and wrong all the time. It just was to...political reading? I couldn't think of a better word for what I mean but it just became quite boring. Too much bickering and not enough action so to speak.

Imani was just one of the uppitiest (is that even a word?) people I have ever read and I could not stand her. She ditched a friend for falling in love and supposedly causing her score to drop, she was rude to her parents almost like she was above them (when I say rude I don't mean the usual teenager antics I mean like she came across all holier than though in my opinion), and she was so quick to conspire (backstab) against a classmate just to get a scholarship when she realized there was no way to raise her score. I'm like okay I get it. I can see why she did these things but was it really worth it? I can only speak for myself but I value my friends, family, and self respect more than having a high score or having to backstab to get what I want. She did somewhat redeem herself in the end but far to late to gain any respect in my eyes.