Excellent book.

Set in a dystopian world where a wonder drug makes people happy without any of the side effects we've come to know and fear of traditional emotion enhancing substances, we meet two teenagers on opposite sides of the moral scale; Hope and Tom. Hope has been taking the drug, Leata, for years and has been transformed from a tomboy into the epitome of the perfect magazine-cover teen and the poster child of the Leata-sponsored blogging community. Her father is a lawyer for PharmaCare, the company producing the drug, and the entire family is known in the community for being upright citizens. Tom is Hope's neighbour and former best friend, though they haven't spoken in years. Tom's father was a journalist trying to uncover the dangers of Leata, but before his story could make it out in the open he passed away. Tom believes that PharmaCare is behind his father's death and rather than going to school, he makes it his mission to uncover the secrets his father was so close to finding. In his search for the truth he stumbles into Hope and they have to work together to find out what is really going on – and who they can trust and who is out there to silence them. The premise of this story is fantastic and from the opening chapter I felt myself completely pulled into this compelling world where there seemingly was no emotional distress for the people taking Leata. It sounds too good to be true, and of course we soon discover that it indeed is. Not in the least because of all the mysteries surrounding those that do not take Leata yet suddenly disappear off the face of the earth or after a stint in rehab are completely converted about the wonders the drug can do for their mental health. Having Tom and Hope on opposite sides at first made for a captivating story and I was particularly intrigued by Hope's standing in the blogging community and the way that PharmaCare utilised bloggers and vloggers to get their message out there to their target audience; impressionable teens. While as a blogger myself the mentions of guest blogging, reviewing and sponsored posts are all familiar, seeing it in the perspective of Cloud 9 the dangers of not actually knowing that someone is trying to sell you something or subtly change your opinion become painfully clear and serves as a warning about the power of social communities, media perceptions and blog posts even in our non-Leata world. The novel continuously flicks back and forth between the perspectives of Hope and Tom, which added to the fast pace of the story and heightened the lingering mystery as just when we think we've uncovered a major secret, the narration would change leaving the reader on the very edge of their seat. And the mystery was a good one – I didn't suspect the actual reveal at all, which made for a nice change as I normally guess these things quite early on. I did find that the ending felt a little too rushed and happily ever after, but it didn't take away from what up until that point had been an unputdownable book. Cloud 9 is a highly original and engrossing young adult dystopian novel, which is packed with a great concept, solid lead characters and a frighteningly realistic future that doesn't seem that far-fetched from where we are today. Fictional it may be, it does serve as a warning for where we are potentially heading as a society and that is a scary thought.