Children of Paranoia - Trevor Shane

The premise here is somewhat strained, as we have two groups living within normal society who are at war with one another, yet no one engaged in the war knows why. As a result, kids are trained from the age of sixteen to begin killing for their side as soon as they turn eighteen. Joe is one of the assassins sent by faceless controllers for his side, and the story is literally told through his point-of-view as jotted down in a journal for his girlfriend Maria, who we meet halfway through the book. Joe doesn't know why he is fighting, which is why I didn't get to know as the reader, but that approach failed to hold me at times - it felt like someone in the book could have simply asked, "wait, wait, WHY are we killing each other again?" As soon as Joe shares the rule that children born to those under the age of eighteen are handed to the other side to raise (yeah, random killing but a solid accord, right?), I was pretty much able to guess where this was going. I was right. It's not a bad story, but as the first in a trilogy, I'm not likely to be a continuing reader.