Review + Interview + Giveaway: daynight by Megan Thomason

Genre: YA Dystopian
Published: November 26, 2012
Series: #1 (daynight)
Length: 324 Pages
Source: author (review copy)
Amazon | Goodreads

“Meet The Second Chance Institute (SCI): Earth’s benevolent non-profit by day, Thera’s totalitarian regime by night. Their motto: Because Everyone Deserves a Second Chance™. Reality: the SCI subjects Second Chancers to strict controls and politically motivated science experiments like Cleaving—forced lifetime union between two people who have sex.

Meet Kira Donovan. Fiercely loyal, overly optimistic, and ensnared by the promise of a full-ride college scholarship, Kira signs the SCI Recruit contract to escape memories of a tragedy that left her boyfriend and friends dead.

Meet Blake Sundry. Bitter about being raised in Exile and his mother’s death, Blake’s been trained to infiltrate and destroy the SCI. Current barrier to success? His Recruit partner—Miss Goody Two Shoes Kira Donovan.

Meet Ethan Darcton. Born with a defective heart and resulting inferiority complex, Ethan’s forced to do his SCI elite family’s bidding. Cleave-worthy Kira Donovan catches his eye, but the presiding powers give defect-free Blake Sundry first dibs.

Full of competing agendas, romantic entanglements, humor, twists and turns, daynight is Megan Thomason’s debut young adult dystopian novel and first in the daynight series.”

Okay first of all I love the cover and I like how it relates to the story. While some parts of the book takes place on earth, the majority of the setting takes place in Thera. Thera is a place for people given a second chance in life. There’s a catch though. They won’t remember anything from their past lives, and they will be given a partner which requires them to “cleave” (a term for marriage or sex I believe). I have never read any dystopian book with this kind of plot which made daynight a refreshing and interesting read for me.

The book is told by our three main characters Kira, Blake, and Ethan. Yes there is a love triangle, and it added suspense to the story. I got a long with the characters except for Kira unfortunately. Kira is from earth and before her senior year in high school, she was recruited by the Second Chance Institute (SCI)  meaning she will be trained there to serve the institute in exchange for a full college scholarship. Thera is the location she was assigned and there she meets one of her friends from earth which is Blake. Why I didn’t really like Kira is because sometimes she acted in a way that was just unbelievable. There was a part in the book where something horrible happened to her family and instead of her reacting surprised, scared, and sad, she showed little of that. Another part is when Ethan’s mother was treating her harshly and she was AWARE of it but she acted like it was okay. Come’on Kira, what’s up with you.

Although it was an interesting dystopian read, I had a few problems with it. I wanted to see how Kira would be trained, but as I was reading, there was more cleaving and partying taking place. The pacing was sort of slow towards the middle of the book, but I’m glad it picked up after that. Also I was confused at times during the first half of the book, but as I continued reading, my questions were answered and man there were lots of twists at the end. Really enjoyed the surprises that the author put in there. I wish I got to know more about the places of the SCI though and not just Thera and the characters’ problems. Overall daynight was a good read for me and I recommend it to dystopian lovers and for those who wants to read a book that involves afterlife.

Megan Thomason lives in paradise aka San Diego, CA with her husband and five children. A former software manager, Megan vastly prefers writing twisted tales to business, product, and marketing plans. When she isn’t typing away on her laptop, she’s reading books on her phone—over 600 in the last year—or attending to the needs of her family. Megan’s fluent in sarcasm, could potentially benefit from a 12-step program for road rage, struggles with a Hot Tamales addiction, loves world travel & fast cars and hates paperwork & being an insomniac. Daynight is Megan’s first published novel, but fourth written one.

Q: How did you come up with daynight’s plot?

As I hiked the canyons of San Diego on a particularly hot day I pondered what would happen if temperatures were so extreme that days and nights had to be switched. This became the impetus for Thera, the main setting for daynight. I researched the extreme temperatures would have on the environment and what a society would have to do to adapt to it. Even the lingo was affected… Monnight, Tuesnight, etc.; daygowns instead of nightgowns; daymares and more… I had a lot of fun with it. daynight’s story is complex, so I plotted the whole thing out and then adjusted continually a I went along and had better ideas.

When I mentally brewed the concepts of dark and light, and what kind of government would rule the dark, The Second Chance Institute (SCI) was born. The characters came next. To best tell the story, I decided to have three characters, each with vastly different backgrounds and experiences tell the story: Kira, an earth-born SCI Recruit; Blake, who grew up in SCI-mandated exile; and Ethan, born to SCI elite and expected to carry on the family business.

Q: If you get to spend the day with one of the characters, who would it be and why?

Jax Christo, a seemingly minor character, but highly important to daynight’s story nonetheless. Jax is great eye candy, hilarious with his unique brand of double speak, knows a lot of Theran secrets, and has great capabilities I’d like to see in person.

Q: Could you tell us a little bit about the dystopian world Thera?

Physically, Thera not only has days and nights switched, but land and sea, direction of the sun, etc. Every Theran city is protected by a 50 foot Eco Barrier, which releases deadly chemical explosions when contacted, preventing entry and exit. Citizens who defy the ruling entity SCI’s edicts are subject to death or immediate exile to the harsh conditions beyond the Eco Barrier.

Like classics 1984, Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale, daynight explores societal extremes of morality and control. The Second Chance Institute is an interesting entity. On Earth they are a well respected non-profit. But on Thera they rule with an iron fist. They purport to provide help to those in need of a second chance at life. But instead of nurturing and fostering the downtrodden, they use the Second Chancers on Thera as science experiments for new political ideas they want to push on Earth. One such idea, Cleaving is an extreme enforcement of morality. If two people have sex, they’re automatically Cleaved, a forced lifetime union (a contrast to the Brave New World government who conditions its citizens to be immoral). Violation of Cleaving results in exile or death. Although, interestingly enough… as the SCI desires everyone to be Cleaved, they push immorality to get people to Cleave, but then expect the newly Cleaved to adopt a strict moral code thereafter.

Of course, Cleaving merely scratches the surface of the SCI’s plans, what they are testing & how far they are willing to go to push their agendas on Earth. Book two of the daynight series, arbitrate, will explore more societal extremes and their implications.

As with all dystopias, daynight should make readers think through parallels between the extreme dystopia and our own society.

Q: What did you feel when you were writing the first chapter of daynight?

Writing the first chapter was emotional for me. Kira relives the day she took The Second Chance Institute Recruit Test… and the same day that her boyfriend and friends died in a terrible explosion. The published version of daynight’s first chapter has little resemblance to the chapter I first wrote :). During one of my (many) re-writes I removed several chapters and started the story at a different place in an effort to get Kira to Thera in the first few pages. I added the prologue later and am glad I did. I love Bailey Goodington’s character. She’s a real piece of work and provides excellent comic relief (alongside Jax) to a story with a lot of heavy, dark and disturbing themes.

Q: Do you have any message to your readers? 

I love my readers and am extremely grateful to all the ‘early adopters’ of daynight who have not only taken the time to read, but to review and spread the word. My husband got cornered in the elevator at work recently and asked if his wife was an author. She heard about daynight through her knitting club! I love it!

As a thank you to my readers, for every 25 reviews posted on Amazon.com I release ‘extras’ for daynight or teasers for the sequel arbitrate (targeted for a summer 2013 release) on facebook and twitter. I’m a couple reviews away from posting full color, full character fashions from daynight. An up and coming costume designer/producer friend, Emma Connelly, graciously spent her winter break putting pictures to my words and they are amazing!

I’d love to hear from you!

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/megan_thomason

Follow the daynight series on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/daynight.series

I am a huge reader, too. Friend me or follow my reviews on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6578897.Megan_Thomason

Read a sample and/or purchase daynight at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A6NG014

Thank you so much to Megan for providing me 8 SIGNED COPIES OF DAYNIGHT! OH EM GEE. 3 of it will be part of this giveaway and the others for future giveaways. I’m making this giveaway international and will end on Feb. 17. Please do take the time to thank her in the comments or her Goodreads page. Also DAYNIGHT WILL BE FREE ON AMAZON FROM 1/21-1/23 if you want to grab it asap!
ENTER THE GIVEAWAY HERE (RAFFLECOPTER)