My relationship with The 100 started off in 2014 shortly after the conclusion of the first season. I was series-less, and a friend recommended me to watch it, and I binged the all thing in two days (just because I had to sleep). Although, I can’t remember when did I become aware the show was based on a book by Kass Morgan. Since then, all I ever wanted to do was to pick up the book. However, you don’t need to do much research to discover that both stories mostly have the name in common and nothing else. And this was a risk for me. I was completely in love with the TV series, and I didn’t want to lose that love for finding the books better or the other way around. Bottom line, I didn’t want the story of one influenced my opinion on the other. So, even after buying the first book, I kept it in my shelf untouched until the right moment came. Somehow that moment came this year.

If you follow the TV series you know the show has just finished it’s 5th season, and it was one of the craziest and bloodiest ever. Well, it started to piss me off! I was not even halfway through the season when the story wasn’t what I wanted to see anymore, it wasn’t The 100 I fell in love with. In that moment of dismay, I saw the perfect opportunity to grab the book, and it was the best decision.

Author: Kass Morgan Publisher: Little, Brown and Company Year: 2013 Pages: 323

Ever since a devastating nuclear war, humanity has lived on spaceships far above Earth’s radioactive surface. Now, one hundred juvenile delinquents – sentenced to death – are being sent on a dangerous mission: to recolonise the planet. It could be their second chance at life…or it could be a suicide mission.

Among the one hundred prisoners there is Clarke, arrested for treason, though she’s haunted by the memory of what she really did; Wells, the chancellor’s son, goes to Earth for the girl he loves; the reckless Bellamy, who fought his way onto the transport pod to protect his sister, the only pair of siblings in the universe; and Glass, who managed to escape back onto the spaceship, only to find that life in the space colony is just as dangerous as she feared it would be down on Earth.

I have to say this first book felt more as an introduction story than anything else. It doesn’t have a proper plot other than letting you know the characters, the dynamics between them, and the secrets that all of them hide. But it’s not a bad book. Instead of action-packed scenes, fight-for-your-life type of thing, the story is more chilled and very enjoyable. Most of the book is about teenage drama, if you are expecting a proper survival story and the lengths people need to go to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, this is not the book. The characters are really the central point of the story.

Do you know how the first half of a book is usually lower passed to introduce the characters and then suddenly shit starts to happen and the story is going so fast your eyes feel like they can’t go along? Well, The 100 is just the first part of that book. When shit is about to start happening the book ends. It can be a little anticlimactic since you are hoping for something very exciting to happen and that moment never cames.

The story is told from 4 different points of view: Clark, Wells, Bellamy, and Glass. And inside of each perspective, we have a lot of throwbacks about their lives up there in the spaceship which let us know the characters’ personalities. On those throwbacks, we also get to know what they have done to be locked up, and the relationships between the characters. From all of them, Glass is the only one that isn’t on Earth, so we don’t get to see her interact with the other main characters – at least for now. And there is something about her that itches my nose, and I don’t know why. I think I need to learn more about her to finally decide if I like her or not.

Something that can’t be left out when the story is about teenagers, is the romance. And in this book, it creeps up very slowly and silently, and then… BAM! In your face. Yet, the romance doesn’t have a centre point in the story. It’s something very small. It happens and then it’s not brought up again. So it exists to set in motion changes between the character for the next book. Although Wells does go down to Earth chasing the girl he loves and is probably the only character that is romance driven in the story, making him a little annoying sometimes.

Believe it or not, this book was a page turner for me. Every time a character had a throwback so much information was left untold, and that kept me going page after page until that character perspective came up again, and I could know more. But then something else was missing. And so I got on this hunt for information that lasted the entire book. I don’t remember ever being bored but I do recall wanting to shove Wells’ head up is own ass to shut him up – who knew he was so annoying? now I see why he was killed in the TV series.

Obviously, I can’t avoid doing comparisons between the TV series and the book, after all that’s where my relationship with The 100 started. As I was reading, I was remembering scenes that happened in the TV series, probably not with the same characters and not straight from the script, but it was close enough. Because the stories are so different, it introduces new characters, new personalities, and a different way of telling the story, it’s easy to forget that both are somewhat related. There were times that I got completely immersed in the book that I forgot everything I knew from the TV show.

The first book fits about the first 5 episodes. So you can’t expect too much to happen and remember that the book only follows the perspective of the teenagers, so we don’t know what is happening with the adults. It’s true the TV series works more on the characters as it keeps putting them on the line of making though decision every episode, whereas in the book they still are who they were back home, they didn’t have the time to grow yet – and haven’t faced many challenges.

Bottom line, if you are looking for heavy drama, survival, and a lot of action, as the TV show, you are going to get disappointed. Although if you are looking for something more light-hearted and slightly different from the TV series, the book might be for you. I also believe that a lot of my enjoyment was thanks to already knowing how the story sort off progresses. The main issue/mystery is the reason why the teenagers were sent down to Earth, and even though that is something that only gets revealed at the end of the book, thanks to the TV series I already knew from the start. If I think about it, it’s sad that I got the end of the book spoiled in a way, although I still love it a lot.

So this is a perspective of someone that loves The 100 TV series and was pretty mad about the path the 5th season was taking and decided to venture in the books. The first season is one of my favourites and seeing that reading the book didn’t alter my feelings towards it, it’s great. I seriously thought that I would have to choose one of the stories to be my favourite but in reality, I love both.

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