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. -Goodreads

Review: For those of you who haven’t read Blood Red Road yet, it’s one of those books that everyone was talking about. A must read! Well, I read it and I wasn’t that impressed. Maybe the hype hurt it a little bit here because it was absolutely still a good read, but it never really hooked me.

Maybe it was just that things were so dire for the characters throughout the entire book. Even moments of triumph were tainted by how awful everything is, so the characters (mainly Saba) never really had a chance to redeem themselves or become particularly endearing. I did like Saba’s younger sister, she was really well written and was extremely believable. But yeah, I just didn’t find Saba to be that likeable, so it does say something for the rest of the stories elements that I stuck through the entire book.

Even in writing this review, I still don’t know what I’m going to rate Blood Red Road. The story was interesting and the world was different from anything else I’ve read, at least recently. Ahh! What to do?!

I will probably read the next book in the Dustlands series but not any time soon. I am at least glad I finally read this book as it does seem to be one of the big ones that always comes up in discussions of YA, and it is a fairly different addition to any Young Adult book collection. It has some of the more traditional story elements we all love, an extremely stubborn main character (usually an author will just tell you that their main character is stubborn but they give in to whatever their love interest wants… not Saba, that girl could have been a mule in a past life), and overall this book is a pretty stark contrast to a lot of overly sentimental titles out there right now… But, as it turns out… I really like overly sentimental. Go figure.

Buy the book @Amazon (US) @Amazon (CAN)

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Second Opinions:
@HPL Teen Space Blog
@Esther’s Ever After
@Alison’s Book Marks