Synopsis: Aria is a teenager in the enclosed city of Reverie. Like all Dwellers, she spends her time with friends in virtual environments, called Realms, accessed through an eyepiece called a Smarteye. Aria enjoys the Realms and the easy life in Reverie. When she is forced out of the pod for a crime she did not commit, she believes her death is imminent. The outside world is known as The Death Shop, with danger in every direction.

As an Outsider, Perry has always known hunger, vicious predators, and violent energy storms from the swirling electrified atmosphere called the Aether. A bit of an outcast even among his hunting tribe, Perry withstands these daily tests with his exceptional abilities, as he is gifted with powerful senses that enable him to scent danger, food and even human emotions.

They come together reluctantly, for Aria must depend on Perry, whom she considers a barbarian, to help her get back to Reverie, while Perry needs Aria to help unravel the mystery of his beloved nephew’s abduction by the Dwellers. Together they embark on a journey challenged as much by their prejudices as by encounters with cannibals and wolves. But to their surprise, Aria and Perry forge an unlikely love - one that will forever change the fate of all who live UNDER THE NEVER SKY.

Review: Under The Never Sky… well it certainly was original and fresh! Dystopian in theme, however a different type of dystopian than what I have previously read before - in a good way.

Under The Never Sky is a story of two people, Aria and Perry. Aria is a teenager who lives in a Government controlled state of Reverie. Reverie is best described as a technology obsessed place where everyone wears these devices called Smarteyes, which allows them to access a virtual reality where anything and everything happens. They can mentally change their scenes, clothes, appearance, meet up with people, message each other etc.

A series of events means that Aria is wrongly convicted of breaching the rules, and she is banished out of Reverie. The pod drops her off at the place only known as The Death Pit, where people before her have been left to die.

She bumps into an “outsider” whilst out there named Perry. Unlikely allies (the two of them initially hate and distrust the other) the two of them decide to pair up to help each other find their loved ones. They meet others on the way, encounter dangers, and find out more about themselves and each other than they ever dared possible.

This story is written from the third person perspectives of Aria and Peregrine (Perry) and the chapters alternate between their views on what is happening, which I really enjoyed and I felt worked really well in telling the story from both perspectives.

I did struggle with the unique terminology that the book threw at me though, and probably for the first third of the book I was actually pretty confused at a lot of the terms, like Aether storms, outsiders, dwellers, the Tide, scires, audiles, Smarteye… (there is more, this is just off the top of my mind) I just felt like it was an AWFUL lot of terminology to put in one book without always going into an explanation, or waiting for a while to explain things.

With that being said, I did push through and once I was over half way, I was pretty confident I had a handle on things and once I understood what was going on I truly enjoyed this book. Since there will be other books in this series, I can forgive the first half of the book for being so complex because I know it’s setting up for more to come in the following books. But that’s probably the only critisism I have of the novel, since everything else was solid - the plot, characters and writing style were all really enjoyable!

I am really looking forward to the next book in this series, but I think I am going to be waiting a while as this book itself is not released until March 2012! I do recommend this book, especially to fans of dystopian works.

Rating: 3 out of 5