Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I suspect the vague but enthusiastic 5 star reviews are posted by friends of the author. They couldn't possibly have really read this book. First off, the book is too long. Way, way, too long. More than five hundred pages long. The first part of the book is full of endless dull details and build up that no one cares about. It takes a few hundred pages for the plot to actually take off. I got the feeling the author just gathered up a ton of plot ideas from other books - like Twilight, The Hunger Games, and etc - tossed them together and recycled them. She clearly didn't even spend much time editing because otherwise she could have condensed the first part of the book so it wasn't boring. Second, the heroine, Gwen, is such an unlikable Mary Sue. She's a shallow, stupid, unrealistic suck-up and an insult to teen readers. Her mom has cancer and an asteroid is about to destroy earth, plus aliens are letting teens fight to the death for a chance to be rescued, but Gwen wastes her energy endlessly mooning over some boy she likes? Yuck. The aliens and their culture are equally yucky. They are into animal rights and talk about how killing animals is evil but seem to have no problem with cruelty to human teens and children. Of course, the aliens are actually originally from ancient Atlantis. Wow, how original. Every single character is cardboard, including the racially stereotyped minority characters. The plot is lame. You can't tell if it's supposed to be science fiction or fantasy. And on top of everything else, the book is written in present tense. Hundred of pages of present tense. Ugh! Maybe the second book in the series will be better, but unless it's a lot shorter, I don't think I'll bother to find out what happens next.