Book Review Musings: Candor by Pam Bachorz

Goodreads description: 

Oscar Banks has everything under control. In a town
where his father brainwashes everyone, he's found a way
to secretly fight the subliminal Messages. He's got them
all fooled: Oscar's the top student and the best-behaved
teen in town. Nobody knows he's made his own Messages
to deprogram his brain. Oscar has even found a way to
get rich. For a hefty price, he helps new kids escape
Candor, Florida before they're transformed into
cookie-cutter teens. But then Nia Silva moves to Candor,
and Oscar's carefully-controlled world crumbles. 

My Review:

Although I think the premise of this book was incredible and had so much potential, I wasn't WOW'd  by the execution. I liked it. It was very readable but it could have been so much more. Which, as a reader, I found very frustrating! The whole brainwashing/messaging element of the book was very interesting and thought-provoking. The idea of what takes place in the book is very creepy and frightening. My primary issue with the book was the character development. Although Oscar was very well written, in many ways he was the only character that I ever felt that I completely 'got' during the novel. The others were fairly weak and let me wanting more. For example, Nia is a critical person in the novel but I never really felt like she was given the substance that a critical character requires.  The relationship between Oscar and Nia felt very contrived to me and I never really felt the relationship was fleshed out properly. Which made me feel on a number of occasions that I must have missed a page or two. I wish I could have given this 3 1/2 stars but I don't feel like it deserved 4. I enjoyed the novel and would recommend it but it didn't blow me away as I'd hoped.

My rating - 3 out of 5 stars