Chapter by Chapter

Coda by author Emma Trevayne is a novel that I was interested in reading after I saw the interesting cover. It was mysterious and I wondered what would happen in the plot. After reading the description I was still in the dark about the novel’s plot and jumped right into the story. Coda is an interesting read, definitely like nothing I’ve ever read before. I don’t read that much sci-fi and Coda is a novel that screams sci-fi all the way! Think of a Surrogates type world where music is a drug. You read that right: In Coda music is a drug.

Coda is set in a dystopian future where technology is absolutely supreme and music is used by the government a.k.a. the Corporation as a drug that controls its citizens. Eighteen-year-old main character Anthem is a rule breaker and plays music, real music, with his underground band. Sure that doesn’t sound threatening but real music is outlawed and illegal and if the Corporation finds out about Anthem’s band everything is sure to go straight to hell. Anthem is addicted to the Corporation’s tracks, constantly using them to escape from reality for a little while, he knows that it’s wrong but the high he gets from it is so right.

Apart from the tracks, Anthem’s been raising his younger siblings Alpha and Omega who barely got to meet their mother who died from ‘tracking’. Anthem would do anything to protect his siblings and he knows that if anything ever happens to him, they still have their father. For now. It’s only a matter of time before their father too dies. Helping Anthem is the girl he’s falling head over heels for, Haven. She’s tough, gritty and willing to stand her ground.

There’s something about Haven that Anthem doesn’t know, a secret that could make or break their relationship and just when everything is already heading down the drain the worst thing that could happen happens to Anthem.

I really liked the world that Coda is set in. It’s like nothing I’ve seen before and it’s a world that had me thinking a lot about all of the sci-fi movies I’ve seen. The world of Coda is one that can get a bit confusing for some people, I for one know that I got confused a lot. Right from the start there are a lot of descriptions that describe the new culture that the people existing within the Corporation’s government have. The problem with this is that you’re told things that don’t get explained. Tons of times I’d be reading, nodding my head at something and suddenly pause and thing ‘why?’ only for my ‘why?’ to never be answered. So many things that could have been explained to better my experience with the story weren’t explained and I admit it took away from my time with Coda.

The characters in Coda are interesting. You’ve got Anthem’s underground band members, the people that want to rebel against the Corp., the Corp’s antagonists and Haven. As characters are introduced you get some backstory on their relationship with Anthem a long with a ton of descriptions that give you a clear idea of what they look like in your head. Some of these characters went above and beyond, I could really get in touch with them and all around liked them (*cough* Haven *cough*). Then you get to some characters who were really two-dimensional and I’ve gotta admit that I didn’t feel much for them. I was also a bit confused about the sexuality in this novel, is everybody bisexual or something? Is that a part of being with the Corp.?

Quality-wise, Coda is a really well-written read. Nearly every chapter in the novel has something interesting, romantic, plot-twisting or exciting happening. All of these things are presented in an awesome way that forces you to keep reading until the very end. Trevayne is an author that knows how to pull her readers into a story and keep them entertained.

I’d recommend Coda to fans of sci-fi, dystopia and readers who are looking to get pulled into a world unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.