Blood Red Road: Review

Synopsis:

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba's world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on an epic quest to get him back.
Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she's a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.
Blood Red Road has a searing pace, a poetically minimal writing style, violent action, and an epic love story. Moira Young is one of the most promising and startling new voices in teen fiction.

***

I have to say, anyone who loves reading dystopian novel like me should definitely go for Blood Red Road. It's a freakishly nice read. One main reason is that it pulls me out of the state of reading slump, which is... getting nonchalant about characters or plots or anything, or just can't get into any books at all. And there are several other reasons why this book is perfect for YA readers.

Mostly, I love Moira Young's writing style. Usually when I read dystopian novels that are written in past tense (yeah, Divergent and Delirium are written in present tense, so they don't count), they are like somebody is reading a story to you. That's fine and nothing wrong to me. But reading Blood Red Road is like reading directly from one's memory (this time it's Saba's). And that's fascinating and... quite dreamy. It's more realistic because I feel like I'm actually reviewing scenes in one's head. But also more unrealistic because... well, they are memories. The words are different too. It's like those characters have got accents. That's really fun. Especially when it comes to sentences like this: " I ain't no coward." I love how the words are so different from other books and that makes the whole reading-one's-memory thing more realistic.

I have to admit there's one flaw in the plot. The book starts out really slow and enough to make me question if I should continue to read the book. But I have to say, things are really, really exciting afterward. Things get super twisted and it's like hell breaks loose. This is a story you will never forget, because they are epic. I also like how Saba grows up in this book. The Saba you know at the beginning of the book is hardly anything like the Saba at the end of the book. You will be astonished how fast she's grown up and become a kick-ass dystopian heroine.

I think I need to go read Rebel Heart right now. I hope that will be better.

Rating: 8.5/10