Count to three. Relax your mind. Now survive.

To be honest I judged the shit out of this book based on the cover and title alone. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to read it, and then I read the synopsis and wanted to read it even more. Lindsey Cummings is a new author and before this was published she wrote The Fear Trials a prequel Novella to The Murder Complex. It focuses on a series of trials that her father puts her through in order for her to leave the boat without being accompanied. She is pitted against her brother who is supposed to be more ruthless than her. But when he leaves go in for his test he fails to kill another person when it matters. Meadow ends up besting her brother and winning her father's prized dagger. It was a great intro to the book and it gave a lot of interesting back story.

Now as for the book I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of it. I am a lover of YA dystopian futures, and my dream has always been to publish my own. So of course this book was perfect for me. It was interesting concept on the post-apocolyptic world set in the Florida Everglades. I did have issues relating to Meadow as a main character. And I am with Allyssa and Katie, I didn't relate to her at all. She was so emotionless and hardened that I couldn't find any qualities of herself in me. I could have understood if she was secretly trying to rebel against her father or mother, or if she felt some sort of guilt for having to do these things but she didn't. And that could have simply been because of the world she lives in, it is obviously a kill or be killed world, but everyone else seemed to have emotions.

Zephyr was an interesting character, and I think he was my favorite. But their love story left a lot to be desired. He says that he was dreaming of her but was that because of the Murder Complex? Or did he really have a connection to her? Also I felt like their love story was rushed in the last few chapters of the book, one minute Meadow hated him and wanted to kill him as soon as she could. And the next she was worried she would lose him and was possibly in love with him. It seems weird to me, but maybe that's how dystopian love works.

Allyssa touched on this in her post about Koi, he is this bad-ass who is so emotionless and wants to do anything he can to show their father that he is the best. But when faced when the perfect opportunity he chokes. Is that because it was all a front? Was he not that hardened killer he acted like? I would have like to know more about why he couldn't kill when it came to it.

I would pick up a sequel if there is one for this book, it wasn't so horrible that I didn't want to continue with it. It did have its flaws but it was an interesting and fast paced read for me. It definitely has inspired me to continue with my own dystopian tale, which is what literature is supposed to do. Inspire.