THE CAGE by Megan Shepherd

Rating: 3 / 5

For the readathon I participated in last week, I needed to add some more books to my books read tally, so it seemed a good time to dig through my shelves for #readwhatyouown. I picked up THE CAGE by Megan Shepherd because it seemed to fit well with a couple more bookstagram challenges as well, #yasschoolisback from @natashaniezgoda and  #hookedonfantasy from @hooked.by.books!

Cora Mason wakes up in a foreign environment with no idea of how she got there. The world seems impossible – a mix of tundra, jungle, desert and wetlands. As she begins to explore she learns that she isn’t alone, there are four other teens there with similarly blank memories for how they got there. Each one seems to harbor some secrets and no one has a clue where they are. It is soon revealed that these teens have not been taken by just any human captor. The cage in which they now reside has been created on another world as part of a zoo where the animals on display are human.

I enjoyed the world building and the descriptions of how their environment is put together. While their cage is built to be a world where they would have everything they need, things are off in such a way that it is off putting. The idea of an alien race attempting to understand what humans are feeling and create a utopia without any human input makes for an interesting setup.

The characters are an interesting mix and there is definitely teen drama at play. They are given ‘simple’ rules to follow and must determine whether to give in and allow themselves to remain peacefully as part of the zoo or whether they will rebel and fight back. While being kept caged is terrifying, I do think that there likely should have been some more thought put into what escape would actually mean given that they are on a foreign planet with no knowledge of what is on the outside.

The premise of this one sounded so intriguing that I picked up the first two books in the series when I spotted them for a good price on Book Outlet. Overall I would say this was an interesting read. While it wasn’t a book that completely hooked me in, it definitely ends with a lot of unanswered questions, so I am glad I have the next in the series to continue on.