The Treatment by Suzanne YoungSeries: The Program #1
Published by: Simon Pulse on April 29, 2014
Genre: Dystopian, Romance
Pages: 352
Source: Edelweiss
Buy on Amazon • Book Details
Rating: ★★★
Can Sloane and James survive the lies and secrets surrounding them, or will The Program claim them in the end? Find out in this sequel to The Program, which Publishers Weekly called “chilling and suspenseful.”
How do you stop an epidemic?
Sloane and James are on the run after barely surviving the suicide epidemic and The Program. But they’re not out of danger. Huge pieces of their memories are still missing, and although Sloane and James have found their way back to each other, The Program isn’t ready to let them go.
Escaping with a group of troubled rebels, Sloane and James will have to figure out who they can trust, and how to take down The Program. But for as far as they’ve come, there’s still a lot Sloane and James can’t remember. The key to unlocking their past lies with the Treatment—a pill that can bring back forgotten memories, but at a high cost. And there’s only one dose.
Ultimately when the stakes are at their highest, can Sloane and James survive the many lies and secrets surrounding them, or will The Program claim them in the end?
I’m sad to say that I didn’t like The Treatment as much as The Program. I thought the first half was a bit slow, since it was mostly just running away and trying to stay under the radar. But mostly, I didn’t like how Sloane, James, and Realm all started fighting. I HATED Realm. I didn’t like him in The Program and I hated him even more in The Treatment. I think he’s a creepy, manipulative bastard, and I don’t like him one bit. It pissed me off that Sloane didn’t hate him.
So my biggest reason for not loving The Treatment was that forced, unnecessary love triangle. James was jealous of Sloane’s friendship with Realm and Realm was spewing out shit like:
“I love you more than James ever could.”
Just shut up already, Realm. You’re a moron.
Then when James disappeared from the book all together for a while, I stopped reading for about two weeks. To be fair, a big reason was because this was over the Christmas/New Year holidays so I was quite busy, but still.. I’m shocked that I put the book down for that long.
When I finally picked it back up and James finally came back, I got into the book more. Things got exciting again, I loved him and Sloane together (they’re seriously ADORABLE!), and overall the book was just a lot more interesting.
My only other gripe after that was the ending. It was extremely rushed. View Spoiler »
So overall I’d say I was a little disappointed in this book, especially after having loved The Program so much. But most people who are reading this one seem to love it, so I’d encourage you to give it a try if you loved the first book!
The Verdict
Ugh Realm. He needs DIE!!!! I hate him. I have a feeling I am going to feel the same way about this book.
I just recently downloaded The Program. It’s good to know you liked that one but now I don’t feel in such a rush to get around to reading it if The Treatment wasn’t so great!
Since I’m horrid at controlling my impulses when it comes to spoilers, I read your little bit at the end, and I’m so very glad I did! If it’s that way… then I’ll hold off on reading it. I loved The Program so much – I don’t want to be disappointed in the end!
hmmmmm I am a little scared of this one now. I don’t like the sounds of the slow beginning, or the love triangle or Realm in general and I wasn’t blown away by the first book (but I did enjoy it) I might read it eventually just to continue with this series but I won’t be rushing to pick this one up.
I actually hated the first book, but there was so much buzz about it that I was considering giving the second book a chance. I’m glad I read your review because now I don’t feel the need to do that! I think she had so much potential with this concept, but it fell flat for me.
SPOILER ALERT
Can someone please clear something up for me!?
So in the ending of ‘The Program’ James and Sloan are about to run away. Now the Epilogue (which says 2 weeks later) describes a familiar scene of Realm and the boys playing cards in one of the program facilities. Only this time a girl named Ally and Sloan were there. This gave me the impression that Sloan ended up getting caught and thrown back into the program… Now I read ‘The Treatment’ and it began right where ‘The Program’ left off (James and Sloan about to run away). I am confused because I finished the book and I was waiting for that epilogue scene from the first book to eventually show up in ‘The Treatment.’ It never did. The book is over a span of two weeks but that scene never happened. Something is not clicking! I need an explanation!