This book is about a girl named Kayla who lives in the future, 2025ish. Her society is so crazy about this cool new thing: the barcode tattoo. Basically, it's like a credit card, an ID permanently attached to your skin. It's supposed to make your life so much easier. Cashiers really appreciate when you use the tattoo. It's kind of like giving a cashier 5 dollars instead of 500 pennies. Anyway, when you turn 17, you're allowed to get the tattoo. Kayla is almost 17, and she doesn't really like the tattoo. Some creepy stuff is going on with it, too. Her dad committed suicide, and her mom says that it was because of the tattoo. Her friend's family had to move away because of it.
Despite all of this, her friend still urges her to get one.
But there are some people who agree with Kayla--people who agree that something is up with the barcode.
That was a pretty long summary.
This book isn't bad so far. It has an average of 3.6/5 on Goodreads, which is pretty terrible. But the first few pages aren't bad. It seems like your normal dystopian, YA book.
Female protagonist who is now old enough to face some sort of problem (Divergent, Uglies): check.
Male protagonist that the female says is attractive (The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Darkest Minds, The 5th Wave, The Fault in Our Stars, Twilight, [I am also ashamed that I mentioned TFiOS and Twilight in the same sentence] every YA book ever): check.
Those other random characters that no one cares about (Divergent and The Hunger Games are great examples, because everyone dies and no one really cares until Allegiant and Mockingjay): check.
That best friend that disappears somewhere along the way (The Fault in Our Stars, The Darkest Minds, Uglies): check.
Slang that can be kind of annoying (The Maze Runner, The Knife of Never Letting Go): check.
But that doesn't necessarily make it a bad book.
There are a lot of really blatant messages in this book. There are a lot of themes about being different and denying the popular trends. There seems to be some rebellion forming, and the plot is oddly intriguing.
One thing that I noticed is that in the beginning, Kayla is so worried about her grades and not being able to pass and not getting into college with an art scholarship. That has slowly started disappearing. She doesn't even seem to worry about it anymore, and I hate when an author forgets to incorporate the details. If the author doesn't mention the art thing after this, then the whole art fiasco would just be a "clever" way to introduce the world in this book. I hate how the author thinks she's being so clever with everything. She is making really obvious points in the book and it almost feels like she's saying "You're going to need to know that later."
Another thing is that the technology in this book is not far from where we're at today, and it might even be a little beneath us. Basically, kindles have replaced textbooks, and the world is very dependent on technology. I can see that happening in the near future, and I see some of it happening today. I just feel like the author wasn't creative enough with the world she built for a society in 2025, but this is Suzanne Weyn, not Raven Symone. Besides the fact that the technology isn't as advanced as it should be, the world seems fairly plausible.
I thought it would be fun to rewrite the first few chapters of The Barcode Tattoo.
***STORY TIME! YAYYY!!!!***
Everyone's using the hashtag. It's everywhere: on book covers, all over the internet, in everyday speech; it's ruining my life.
It all started from Twitter. It was supposed to be an easier way to search for the posts you want to see, but society has abused it. It's taken a strong following from people who use the hashtag ironically and people who use it because they genuinely find it useful.
But I'm different. I know that there's something wrong with the hashtag.
My name is Kiara.
We were sitting on the stairsteps by the main hallway of the school. I pulled out my phone to do my hourly tweet. "Sitting on the stairs with my BFF. Soooo booored."
I hit send. My best friend, Rachel, leaned over my shoulder and scoffed.
"What?" I demanded.
She rolled her eyes. "You need to use the hashtag, Kiara," she replied. "Listen, if you don't use the hashtag, nobody is going to see your tweet, and you'll never be Twitter famous."
I let out a small laugh. "Does it even matter, Rachel?"
"Yes! It totally matters! Listen--if you're not Twitter famous, you'll be, like, an outcast." Rachel held her phone in front of me and began to punch in some letters. "At school. #Boredoutofmymind #bigbooty #celeb #chanel #taylorswift #iluvhaters #justinbieber #themostadorablekittensyouwilleversee."
"There," Rachel said proudly, sending the tweet with enthusiasm.
She played a game on her phone for a minute before returning to Twitter. "Oh my gawwwsh. I have, like, 100 retweets already. How many do you have?"
I sighed, staring unhappily down at my phone. "2."
Rachel laughed. "And I was one of them. Listen girl, just use the hashtag."
The bell rang, and Rachel bounded up the stairs. I began to tear up. Why couldn't I just be normal? What's wrong with me?!
I began to sob and found refuge beneath the stairs.
"Hey, what are you doing down there?" an extremely attractive and nice guy who rescues abused kittens and has biceps bigger than my head asked.
"It's nothing. I'm find. Gosh," I replied.
The extremely attractive guy nodded sympathetically and proceeded to take off his shirt. His abs were well defined, kind of like the spaces between the bricks on a brick building. He was also very tan and attractive, and hot, and attractive. He handed it to me.
"It makes me feel better when I'm sad," he said. I snatched the shirt from his hands and hugged it close to my chest.
Then I do normal teenage girl things--take selfies at da mall. I drove home in my cruddy car, because no teenager deserves to have a nice car, and saw flashing red lights by my house.
I immediately leaped out of my car to see what all of the fuss was about.
Someone grabbed my shoulders from behind. I whipped around and saw my mom, an absolute wreck. Her mascara was smeared, and black tears streamed from her eyes.
"It killed him!" she screamed.
"What?! Who?!" I demanded.
"IT KILLED HIM!" she repeated, louder this time. "THE HASHTAG!"
I'm just going to stop there. I'm having far too much fun with this.
I hope you enjoyed that half baked review. It was . . . interesting.
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