This cyberpunk sci fi really delivers on world build. I was easily reminded of Neal Stephenson and really enjoyed the wild ride. I had a hard time falling in love with the main character - perhaps the book is intended for a younger audience. But despite that, the side characters are rich and vibrant worth this hero's journey. You won't regret reading this one. Looking forward to more from Allison.

Posted to Zerofiltersaurus.wordpress.com on 11/1/19-

The plot, in a nutshell: A teenage girl is abducted from her children’s home and wakes up in an eerie new world, an urban hell where it’s citizens are called Voids and are treated worse than rats.


The things I loved about it: It’s a dark humoured dystopian thriller, one of my my favourite literary combinations. The world building is fun but grim, and has a bit of a Hunger Games feel in that it is fantastical but you really wouldn’t want to wake up there. The concept of the book is fascinating, the story being told as part of a transcript in some kind of study, and the ending is obscenely curious, and makes wanting to read the sequel an absolute no-brainier. Gripping and unputdownable, with more twisted humour than a bad joke shop. There are so many things in this book that could be offensive to anyone which is so crude that I couldn’t love it more if I tried. Oh, and Jacob is without a doubt one of my most favourite characters ever and has absolutely brilliant dialogue.


The things I didn’t: Right at the beginning I could not tell what the hell was going on. To be honest, I still don’t think I do now.


The most damning truth... ‘People don’t like looking too closely at mental illness, scared they’ll catch it...It’s offensive, but so is the world we’re living in.’

A reassuring truth... ‘But pressure makes diamonds from dirt.’
The author: Eli Allison, debut novelist who is also a very entertaining tweeter and a very talented artist. (You should check out her blog)


I rate this: 5 big sweary stars! (Definitely not sweaty stars, ffs autocorrect)


Sour Fruit was published on 16th August 2018 by Unbound. Thank you to Unbound (via NetGalley) for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley and Unbound for this free copy.

Well, that was fantastic.
Onion, Rhea and Jacob are a bunch of fun to follow around and eavesdrop on their conversations.
They curse, poke fun and are super weird. All things I like to have in close friends.

"Rhea warned me, "curiosity killed the cat." Well, since I'm not a metaphorical pussy I should be good."

The story itself is interesting and well paced with lots of action, sassy characters and strangeness.
What more could you want in this dystopian world?
I am super excited that this is only the first book in the series and am eager for the author to write the rest of the books!

"Assumption kills adventure."

I was very curious about this book and haven’t been disappointed. The dystopian context is interesting and very well outlined by the story: absolutely no infodump, the immersion is immediate and the comprehension gradual.

As a result the first 20% were easy to read but I had the feeling of a nightmare. Then gradually the world begins to unfurl and clear up, till the end, where nearly all the mysteries are unraveled (we even find about Onion’s real name!), leaving just enough suspense for future developments.

The characters are quite good, the mad ones as much as the main characters, which are all likeable, despite or because of their flaws. Their psychologies are well nuanced and credible in the context, especially the heroin’ s ones. Onion is frequently rude and injust, even cruel, but the circumstances are so dire that her reactions are quite understandable, and it’s easy to feel for her.

The narration is fluid and not difficult to follow, despite the absence of chapter. I had more difficulties with the vocabulary, loading with slang (hello Kindle dictionary!) and sometimes with sentences I didn’t understand while understanding every word. But English isn’t my first language and some books can sometimes be challenging…

The story has a lot of personality and a very strong atmosphere. It's also dark and nearly desperate and, if never gratuitous – the world imagined, in a not so far futur, is unjust and terrible – rather too oppressive for me. I appreciate my reading but the end of the book was a bit difficult. But I wasn’t surprised, I knew that this kind of story is always hard for me to swallow! And the end was great, interesting and surprising.

A very good read, with a lot of personality, a graphic atmosphere and good characters, a book I strongly recommend to any reader intrigued by its synopsis.

Sour Fruit is set in a speculative, somewhat bizarro, dystopian world. Onion/Sweet Pea is a teenage girl living in the UK in a not too distant future where citizens have been segregated into two social classes, the INC (people with citizenships that follow strict laws and are under surveillance) and the VOIDs (the poor, the sick, slaves, refugees, sex workers, anyone who fails the Citizen Suitably Test, etc.). She was raised as an INC, but is thrown into the world of VOIDS, when she loses her INC status. She spends much of the book, which looks like it may be the first in the series, learning about the social structure from the VOIDS point of view.

The dialogue flows organically. There is a lot of swearing, and other course language, but it doesn’t feel overused or unnatural. The writing is very fast paced, with no chapters, so it is hard to find a good place to put it down and is ideal for reading in one sitting.

There were sections of this book I would have liked to see be further fleshed out; primarily the section with the dance party where everyone was painted or costumed. I felt ripped away from that intriguing peek into the world of VOIDS, and I would have enjoyed more descriptions before the scene ended far too quickly. I would have read another 100 pages of this book, had the author written them.

Darkly funny, sometimes violent, and original. Onion might not always be the most likable character, and sometimes she is downright mean, but not unlike a genuine teenage girl. Rhea seems strong, and I wanted to know her character better. I look forward to future books in this series.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an unbiased review.

Inventive and amazing, Sour Fruit does dystopian fiction a little along the lines of Anthony Burgess, and stands on its own too.

This is a book I wish I had written...but I’m glad I got to read it.

Sour Fruit by author Eli Allison is an awesome, adult fiction/sci-fi read that takes the imagination to many places. The characters are really well thought out and the plot itself is well structured. A really fun book!
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of Sour Fruit in exchange for an honest review.