Blood Red Road by Moira YoungMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is perhaps the best young adult, post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel I've read thus far. I'm really into these sorts of novels lately. It might be due to the fact that I loved The Passage, and now I can't seem to get enough of stories like it. I'm particularly impressed with this because it maintains a raw, gritty feel, like The Passage, without being too adult.
In this particular story, Saba, a young woman, has to watch as strangers come along to kidnap her beloved twin brother, Lugh, and kill her father. She goes out to find him, reluctantly hauling her nine-year-old sister Emmi along with her. They are kidnapped, Saba is forced to be a cage fighter, she is imprisoned, they fight horrible beasts and a crazy king. It's a long book, but it didn't feel long at all, and I was sort of sad to see it come to an end.
There are a lot of things about this book that really work for me. Most importantly, the action never stops. Never. It starts out on an exciting note and the tension continues to build throughout the story. I think that several YA novelists should take note. Moira Young doesn't tell us that things happen to her characters. She doesn't fill us in with a lot of back story. She shows us, and that only adds to the story's readability. It really is the kind of book you do not want to put down.
Then I loved the voice. Saba speaks in a colloquial dialect that reminded me of an Old West novel. And I'm not talking about prim and proper Mattie Ross in True Grit. It reminded me more of These is My Words. Not the story, of course, but the voice. As with These is My Words, at first I was worried that I would find the narrator's grammar distracting (along with the lack of quotation marks to indicate dialogue, in this case). However, her delivery gave her an authenticity that wasn't forced. It was simply a natural part of her character and made her more believable.
I'm also surprised at the way the violence in the story doesn't distract from the focus, Saba's quest to find Lugh. It reminded me of The Hunger Games in that the violence wasn't overly gratuitous. It only enhances the depraved nature of the post-apocalyptic world that they inhabit. The cage fighting, for example, is more about demonstrating what a horrible drug has done to the addicts of Hopetown than it is about the actual fighting, and Young doesn't spend too much time on the gory details of violence.
Once again, the description of cities that have come apart, like in Ship Breaker, were perfect. I'm a city girl...as in I am in LOVE with New York...serious LOVE. So when I hear descriptions of cities in ruins, I'm fascinated. The idea of a place like New York with only the steel skeletons of skyscrapers remaining is haunting and beautiful.
Then there was the romance. Saba finds herself saving Jack, and he follows her on her mission to find Lugh. It was good...plenty of back and forth between the two. Young did a perfect job building the tension and then letting them get frustrated before finding each other again. And oh the kissing. Some good kissing here.
Finally, there is what Jami's review has to say about feminists themes. I completely agree with her and couldn't have said it better myself. You can read her review for yourself. Needless to say, Saba is a heroine that I can get on board with. I think this is another thing that other YA novelists ought to consider. You can create a really strong female character who is also allowed to fall in love. I can't wait to read more about how their relationship develops.
In the end, this reminded me of a lot of other books (if that wasn't obvious from my review), even if that wasn't Young's intention. But either way, it worked because the reminders were for all the right reasons...the reasons that I loved those other books. This is definitely going on my favorites list, and I can't wait to read further installments.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment