Inside Out (Insider #1)

Inside Out (Insider Series #1)

By Maria V. Snyder

Published April 1st, 2010 by Harlquin

315 pages

3.5 stars - It was pretty good, check it out!

Keep Your Head Down.

Don't Get Noticed.
Or Else.
I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I've got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution.

I have to say that I enjoyed Inside Out.  The beginning was a little slow for me but only after a few chapters did it get good.  The book is in Trella's perspective.

Trella is a scrub or one of thousands of people who work on the lower levels of Inside.  No one is really sure what Inside is just that everything is square like and has 4 levels.  2 for the scrubs and 2 for the Uppers.  The scrubs are responsible for more of the physical labour, keeping everything clean and running.  And the Uppers work on the computers with maintenance.  The whole society is ruled by one family, the Travas.  They decide what goes and they have Pop Cops who make sure there are no trouble makers.  Trella usually stays in the pipes partly because her job requires it and partly because she doesn't like the noise.  It's crowded on the lower levels and everyone knows one another so the pipes are a type of hiding spot from the others.  Everything is normal for Trella and the people in Inside until Trella agrees to find something for Broken Man, a prophet who speaks of Gateway.  Gateway is the place where you can access Outside, a place that everyone dreams of finding.  No one knows where Gateway is and some don't believe it exists but Broken Man knows and soon him and Cog, Trella's best friend, have her helping find it.  But finding Gateway isn't going to be easy and it could result in getting in trouble which usually results in the Chomper.  Then she meets Riley, an upper who wants to help but Trella knows better than to trust just anyone.  Because trusting anyone and getting your hopes up could cost you your life.

So Inside Out was pretty interesting.  The whole time I was wondering what the Inside was and where they could be.  The book has you guessing at times and I liked that.  The only problem was that at times it could get a little slow.  But that's probably the only thing.  The ending was exciting and had me wanting to get the second book.  The characters were pretty great as well.  I liked seeing how Trella grew throughout the book and how she learned to trust.  Of course the other characters were interesting as well.  Inside Out had suspense and adventure (as much as you can have in a big cube).  There was also humor and some romance mixed in and I think that calls for a pretty decent book.  I know that I'll be reading the sequel to figure out what's going to happen.  So check this book out, its different from what's out there.


Vanessa