Nicole also publishes under the pen names Elizabeth Darcy and Anne Wentworth.Contributor by Nicole Ciacchella
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Contributor takes the reader into the life of Dara Marrow. As a seventeen year old, Dara is now being evaluated as an engineer and by performing well; she is selected to join a specialized apprentice program with two others to compete for the position of Assistant to the Head of Engineering. This is ultimately what Dara has been working her whole life for and being chosen is exactly what she was hoping for. Dara is assigned to work with Contributor D’Angelo (Letizia) and immediately dives into her training. Along the way, Dara’s competition for the assistant role become pretty cutthroat and after her mother has an accident and can no longer contribute, Dara begins to question everything she was ever taught.
One of things I wish we would have had a deeper dive into is the whole background of the dome and the class system. I thought the class segments were interesting and the explanation of how they aligned to society but what was confusing to me was how it all came to be. I wanted to know more about the different Creators and how things ultimately got to the situation where people were only valued if they were contributing to the success of the Creator.
Dara is definitely smart and as her relationship with Contributor D’Angelo changes, she begins to learn more about the Creator and even more about the things outside the dome. I thought Ciacchella did a great job developing her as well as the relationship between Dara and Contributor D’Angelo. By experiencing the shift in Dara’s beliefs, I was able to see just how much of a gap there was between her and Jonathan and although he was there for her when she needed him to be, she was smart to recognize that neither of them were going to be able to change their opinion, no matter how much they cared for each other.
I do wish we would have gotten more background around Mal. While he was just a peripheral character initially, he truly became someone that would ultimately hold Dara’s life in his hands. I’m still not sure what his background is and hope book two goes into more detail about who he really is. Additionally, I would have liked a bit more detail around how Letizia came to be involved with Raj, Mal, and Tasha. It felt a bit glossed over and other than saying they had different beliefs than those in the dome, I didn’t completely understand how they came to know each other.
Overall I thought this was a great introduction to Dara’s world. Even with the items I mentioned above, I thought that Ciacchella did a good job developing the main characters. The story was continually moving and had me turning the pages to see what was going to happen next. This was a solid book one and I am definitely looking forward to seeing what happens in book two and how much more Dara’s world will change.
Thank you to Netgalley & Sweenix Rising Books for the review copy.
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