Warning for suicide and self harm

This is a dystopian where anyone under the age of 18 shows signs of depression they are sent to The Program. If you cry, act weird or are depressed for a while or show any signs of depression you are sent into The Program. Everyone that returns has there memory wiped.

This book does treat depression as a disease. Though it does make sence why. That is how society sees them. They just know that people get depressed then they kill themselves. They don’t get a full understanding of what it is. This isn’t a book to read to learn about depression. They don’t have a message or any advice to help people with depression. They don’t give a good lesson on what depression is in general.

A lot of people do get depressed and there is a lot of suicide attempts but that is because people are getting friends taken away and getting there memory wiped. When they get back they don’t remember there friends and they aren’t the same. Most kids would rather die than go to the program. Most kids that did suicide in this book did it because they knew that they were going to be taken away.

The book does have the one message that erasing memory doesn’t help. They do have a part that the dad saids that they are lucky to not remember sad events but it is pointed out that even with there memorys wiped they aren’t happy. People that return can tell that something is missing but they can’t tell what.

I am not a romance person but i thought that the main couple was good. They started the book dating so we didn’t have to go there will they won’t they. We got to see how they function as a couple so that later in the story we can hope for them to make it back together. It was a fate love story without it being clingy. It wasn’t the typical couple. The author focused on making the couple more goofy than romantic. It is shown that they care about each other. For me it seem more realistic than some romances we have in books today. We do get a lot of background behind there relationship too.

I didn’t like the love triangle. Sloane and James are the main couple. Sloane meets a boy from The Program. She makes it clear that she only likes him as a friend but he keeps on trying to make a move on her. She does kinda too. I don’t get the point. The book has made it clear sence the first page that she is going to end up with James so i don’t get the point.

The Program - Likewise Book Reviews

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