I have just not had good luck with books lately. This is yet another book that had such great potential, but simply did not live up to my expectations. When you're on the run from the government and part of an underground rebellion, you'd think your life would be filled with suspense, secrets, excitement, fear, etc. Apparently not, in the case of "Once We Were." The most frustrating part of this book, though, wasn't the fact that it was filled with a bunch of sitting around doing nothing. What got me was the fact that the only big plan discussed to stick it to big brother is horribly thought out and the logic/reasoning behind it is absolute nonsense. I have no idea how a group of people could honestly believe that something like this would really make things any better for hybrids living in hiding. My complete and total frustration with the characters' bad decisions combined with the total lack of anything else even remotely interesting going on made this book a real chore to get through. At no point in this novel did Zhang effectively instill fear, suspense, danger, excitement--nothing. I felt absolutely nothing the entire time I read this, apart from annoyance. I will probably read the third installment, just to see how everything rounds out and with the hope that this next book will at least be less boring. I would recommend this series to fans of books like "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer.
