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Pulse Point #1
Pulse Point
Pulse Point is set in a future where the climate has made the world inhospitable to humans. In order to survive, people live in self-sustaining domed cities. The City that Kaia and her family live in is run by Overseers, guards that ensure all the Citizens follow the guidelines so the City can maintain its ‘Energy In = Energy Out’ policy. Citizens are only allowed to use the energy they create. Energy production is calculated and displayed on their pulse point, a transmitter embedded in a person’s finger. When a Citizen is no longer able to produce energy, they are Balanced, or killed.
248 pages, Paperback
First published May 8, 2018
4 people are currently reading
142 people want to read
About the author
Colleen Nelson
31 books131 followersColleen Nelson is the author of YA fiction books Finding Hope (2016), 250 Hours (2015), The Fall (2013) and Tori by Design (2011). 'The Fall' and 'Tori by Design' both won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award. 'The Fall' was also nominated for the White Pine Award. Currently living in Winnipeg with her husband, two young sons and three grown step-children, Colleen manages to eke out time to write everyday, but usually in the early morning after a strong cup of coffee. A junior high school teacher for ten years before having children, Colleen is familiar and comfortable with the tricky phase of life called 'adolescence'. Now a Teacher-Librarian in Winnipeg, Canada, Colleen is constantly on the look-out for books that will catch the attention of her reading-reluctant sons.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 6, 2018
"If Citizens found out the truth-"
"They'do nothing. The Council keeps them fearful. People are easier to control when they're scared."
Minor spoilers (but if you know the genre nothing will surprise you about my review).
Get ready for a negative review. I see that there are a lot of positive ratings. Well, mine is not.
Where do I begin? To be honest I feel so unthankful for not having liked this book because I won it in a giveaway. But as you may already have noticed, I'm always transparent about my opinions so here I go.
Here's the plot: we have the City as opposed to the Mountain. The City is where only the fittest live. People there have to contribute to the equilibrium of society and have to constantly produce energy so as to receive it. People have to exercise to produce energy and keep the city and bodies going.
There are overseers, people who make sure that people obey. Their job is a desirable one, since it gives you status and recognition.
People are paired, meaning that the people in charge (I don't think there is a government, we just have this vague idea about a ruling group) make sure to compare individuals and see which ones fit together the better.
Women in society must have their hair cut.
The most interesting element about the story is the pulse point itself: a little microchip implanted in the index finger, it is a way to keep people under control and to track them. You can proyect holograms and memories there, which I think is a really good element to the story. The microchip is inserted there the moment you are born. Also it can detect lies and signals the energy level.
The Mountain is the place where people who escape from the City go. Also there lives people who didn't belong to the "great society" when the dome was created. It is where the Prims live, and everyone is afraid of that place. You know, short for 'primitives.'
Pulse Point is the typical dystopia. We have the scientists warning about something, natural disasters happening, creation of a safe place where only certain people have access to...
The main characters are Kaia and Lev. For me, Lev was just an extra voice and not an essential one to keep the story going. We learn most of the things from Kaia, anyway. There was nothing I liked about her. Besides at the beginning of the novel she does something that later one she hates when she finds out about someone else. Come on...
Kaia and Lev supposedly love each other but isn't it funny that the moment Kaia is away from Lev she just keeps thinking only about her future? While Lev does think constantly about her.
Pulse Point is only a big collage of other stories:
-Creation of a dome -> book by Stephen King
-Inhability to feel/love and the ruling people imposing a match for you -> Delirium
-Natural catastrophes striking -> The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Shatter Me
-Escaping the City into the unknown -> Under the Never Sky, Divergent?
-Girl who turns out to be special + studies something related to medicine -> Partials
-Creation of monstruous animals to keep people at bay from the dome-> The Hunger Games
-Group of people considered to be savage and primitives obly because they are different-> Delirium
-The City not telling their people their true intention-> The Maze Runner
-Group of rebels plotting against the ruling society-> THG
Guys, there is no mistery, everything is explained for you first-hand so no thought-effort is needed, and the two, three plot twists were so predictable that I kept rolling my eyes at what I read.
The fact that her Pulse Point stops working is never explained and I think that it is only not function properly happens for the sake of the events to occur.
I feel that maybe if I had read this story some years ago I would have liked it. But dystopia's moment is long gone, and all the elements that this story presents were used a lot of times already.
I wasn't moved by anything that happened, anything, and the only reason I finished the book was because it only has 200 pages.
And the end... OMG. Kaia claims to be a different girl than before (how many days went by since she escaped to the Mountain? Three? Four?), but throughout the story she is the same. Girl. All. The time. So she hasn't really changed anything; she just knows more things than before.
The only thing missing at this point is a love triangle. For f's sake.
Would I recommend this book? No.
Give me originality.
"They'do nothing. The Council keeps them fearful. People are easier to control when they're scared."
Minor spoilers (but if you know the genre nothing will surprise you about my review).
Get ready for a negative review. I see that there are a lot of positive ratings. Well, mine is not.
Where do I begin? To be honest I feel so unthankful for not having liked this book because I won it in a giveaway. But as you may already have noticed, I'm always transparent about my opinions so here I go.
Here's the plot: we have the City as opposed to the Mountain. The City is where only the fittest live. People there have to contribute to the equilibrium of society and have to constantly produce energy so as to receive it. People have to exercise to produce energy and keep the city and bodies going.
There are overseers, people who make sure that people obey. Their job is a desirable one, since it gives you status and recognition.
People are paired, meaning that the people in charge (I don't think there is a government, we just have this vague idea about a ruling group) make sure to compare individuals and see which ones fit together the better.
Women in society must have their hair cut.
The most interesting element about the story is the pulse point itself: a little microchip implanted in the index finger, it is a way to keep people under control and to track them. You can proyect holograms and memories there, which I think is a really good element to the story. The microchip is inserted there the moment you are born. Also it can detect lies and signals the energy level.
The Mountain is the place where people who escape from the City go. Also there lives people who didn't belong to the "great society" when the dome was created. It is where the Prims live, and everyone is afraid of that place. You know, short for 'primitives.'
Pulse Point is the typical dystopia. We have the scientists warning about something, natural disasters happening, creation of a safe place where only certain people have access to...
The main characters are Kaia and Lev. For me, Lev was just an extra voice and not an essential one to keep the story going. We learn most of the things from Kaia, anyway. There was nothing I liked about her. Besides at the beginning of the novel she does something that later one she hates when she finds out about someone else. Come on...
Kaia and Lev supposedly love each other but isn't it funny that the moment Kaia is away from Lev she just keeps thinking only about her future? While Lev does think constantly about her.
Pulse Point is only a big collage of other stories:
-Creation of a dome -> book by Stephen King
-Inhability to feel/love and the ruling people imposing a match for you -> Delirium
-Natural catastrophes striking -> The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Shatter Me
-Escaping the City into the unknown -> Under the Never Sky, Divergent?
-Girl who turns out to be special + studies something related to medicine -> Partials
-Creation of monstruous animals to keep people at bay from the dome-> The Hunger Games
-Group of people considered to be savage and primitives obly because they are different-> Delirium
-The City not telling their people their true intention-> The Maze Runner
-Group of rebels plotting against the ruling society-> THG
Guys, there is no mistery, everything is explained for you first-hand so no thought-effort is needed, and the two, three plot twists were so predictable that I kept rolling my eyes at what I read.
The fact that her Pulse Point stops working is never explained and I think that it is only not function properly happens for the sake of the events to occur.
I feel that maybe if I had read this story some years ago I would have liked it. But dystopia's moment is long gone, and all the elements that this story presents were used a lot of times already.
I wasn't moved by anything that happened, anything, and the only reason I finished the book was because it only has 200 pages.
And the end... OMG. Kaia claims to be a different girl than before (how many days went by since she escaped to the Mountain? Three? Four?), but throughout the story she is the same. Girl. All. The time. So she hasn't really changed anything; she just knows more things than before.
The only thing missing at this point is a love triangle. For f's sake.
Would I recommend this book? No.
Give me originality.
May 16, 2020
I enjoyed this book, but felt the story was a bit rushed with no real resolution.
January 21, 2019
I enjoyed the story here. It’s a YA novel so a quick read for me. Lots of common dystopian themes here, but it made for a fun read.
I liked how the City people spoke of the history of earth before the disaster (ie Mae the elder would have been a “grandmother”).
They last few chapters ended quickly, with less detail than the beginning. I wonder if that’s intentional? Like there might be a sequel?
I liked how the City people spoke of the history of earth before the disaster (ie Mae the elder would have been a “grandmother”).
They last few chapters ended quickly, with less detail than the beginning. I wonder if that’s intentional? Like there might be a sequel?
May 30, 2018
I could not put this book down. Colleen Nelson and co-author Nancy Chappell-Pollack have written a dystoptian that weaves science and science fiction that will leave you begging for the sequel. Extremely clever. Highly Recommended.
July 11, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. It did take me awhile to read it just cause I had to make the time but once I got into it I couldn't put it down! I compared it a lot to the hunger game series. It was a great dystopian novel by a Manitoba author!
February 12, 2019
It was soooo good!! Finished it in a day and a bit, but it was really enthralling and it kind of had a cliffhanger that I really liked. I recommend it to all my friends! A "MUST READ"!
November 13, 2019
It's a really good book
Very descriptive
Very descriptive
Read
January 2, 2023Read somewhere in early 2020
January 6, 2020
I felt the book had a lot of great points, and for sure kept me interested the entire time, I think it was a great summary of dystopian future and the results of confinement and propaganda.
June 4, 2019
pulse point is a canadian dystopian YA moment wherein the world has been ravaged by global warming & our main gal Kaia lives in the City, a protective bubble scientists designed to keep the rest of the world out - aNd iTs cItIzEnS iN! everyone has to work out for a long time each day to generate enough energy for the City sustainable (i would definitely not make it there) and when u don’t generate enough energy anymore (ie. the old and the weak) u get “balanced” ie killed. the concept was interesting and i was enjoying myself until the end, when things started to get truly wild. this bad boy was only 200 pages long so certain aspects of the storyline felt very rushed & i probably would have wanted certain things to be fleshed out more. i’m quite over the dystopian thing @ this point as well.
RATING: three bribe potatoes out of five 🥔
RATING: three bribe potatoes out of five 🥔
December 23, 2019
Dystopian YA novel with a fast moving plot that uncovers many a hidden secret. The ending begs a sequel.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews