Scan barcode
A review by stuckinafictionaluniverse
Blood Red Road by Moira Young
4.0
Blood red road - restoring one's faith in the dystopian genre since 2011!
This had lingered onto my TBR list for some time. I finally decided to read it, and was pleasantly surprised.
Blood red road is a no-nonsense kind of book - something I love to see in a dystopian novel. When I read something from the genre I often think, "Cut to the action already!"
I like my dystopian novels to be similar to a good action movie; fast-paced, action-packed and exciting, but with more substance and character development.
With that said, Moira Young's debut novel ticks all those boxes.
It is a great adventure with a terrific plot.
It has originality and is very light on the world-building, and it works so well! As I've mentioned before, info-dumps are a big pet peeve for me, so I'd rather have a small amount of decent information than 50 pages of poor explanations.
As a perfectionist, I was afraid the writing style would be a problem, and in the beginning I did find myself correcting the misspellings and grammatical errors (hypocritical since English isn't my first language and I am well aware of my own frequent mistakes).
But after 70 pages I was used to it and thought it even made the book better.
The writing didn't feel 'dumbed down', it made sense and felt appropriate.
It made it into a very fast read and I flew through the book.
I got completely caught up in the plot by the 100-page mark. The events and challenges the main character faced were so interesting and made room for plenty of character development.
The storyline/sidetrack that took place in the middle stood out the most; it was violent, unexpected and could've been an entire story on its own.
Saba is a main character with one of the strongest backbones I've ever seen. She is more of a Katniss Everdeen-like heroine, in that her flaws are very obvious and sometimes end up clouding her personality, but her priorities are set straight and she does care deeply for her family.
Saba's tough, with the mindset of one used to fight for survival every day.
She is also irritable and impulsive.
The mistakes made by her are plenty, but she redeems herself by being a smart and strong character.
There are two very different sibling relationships displayed here.
One is between Saba and her twin brother Lugh, who she is trying to find after he's been captured by mysterious men.
We don't see much of them together, but we know that Saba loves him like no other, and will do anything to save him.
The other is the one concerning Saba and her younger sibling Emmy.
Their relationship was more distant and the interactions between them restrained. The little conversation they had was always in the form of harsh words from Saba's side.
They often argued, as siblings will, but I think that they deep down cared for each other, even if they rarely ever got along.
Saba was upset for being left with a weak nine-year-old whose birth had costed her mother's life.
One of the other reasons was because Emmy wasn't Lugh. Saba would have rather had her be taken than him.
As the book goes on, their relationship strenghtens. I really enjoyed reading about the two, and hope that Emmy will have just as large of a role in the sequel.
The romance was very enjoyable and wasn't a big part of the story, which was appreciated.
Jack completely charmed me and I liked how their relationship wasn't rushed or overdramatic.
They were both such independent characters and I was surprised by how good they were for each other.
The two cons I can think of are these:
I had a hard time picturing the landscape and it took a while for the story to pick up.
Final verdict:
Blood red road is one of the best dystopians I've read.
Good characters, an exciting plot that will keep you hooked, with a straight-to-the-point writing style it top it all off.
I highly recommend it!
This had lingered onto my TBR list for some time. I finally decided to read it, and was pleasantly surprised.
Blood red road is a no-nonsense kind of book - something I love to see in a dystopian novel. When I read something from the genre I often think, "Cut to the action already!"
I like my dystopian novels to be similar to a good action movie; fast-paced, action-packed and exciting, but with more substance and character development.
With that said, Moira Young's debut novel ticks all those boxes.
It is a great adventure with a terrific plot.
It has originality and is very light on the world-building, and it works so well! As I've mentioned before, info-dumps are a big pet peeve for me, so I'd rather have a small amount of decent information than 50 pages of poor explanations.
As a perfectionist, I was afraid the writing style would be a problem, and in the beginning I did find myself correcting the misspellings and grammatical errors (hypocritical since English isn't my first language and I am well aware of my own frequent mistakes).
But after 70 pages I was used to it and thought it even made the book better.
The writing didn't feel 'dumbed down', it made sense and felt appropriate.
It made it into a very fast read and I flew through the book.
I got completely caught up in the plot by the 100-page mark. The events and challenges the main character faced were so interesting and made room for plenty of character development.
The storyline/sidetrack that took place in the middle stood out the most; it was violent, unexpected and could've been an entire story on its own.
Saba is a main character with one of the strongest backbones I've ever seen. She is more of a Katniss Everdeen-like heroine, in that her flaws are very obvious and sometimes end up clouding her personality, but her priorities are set straight and she does care deeply for her family.
Saba's tough, with the mindset of one used to fight for survival every day.
She is also irritable and impulsive.
The mistakes made by her are plenty, but she redeems herself by being a smart and strong character.
There are two very different sibling relationships displayed here.
One is between Saba and her twin brother Lugh, who she is trying to find after he's been captured by mysterious men.
We don't see much of them together, but we know that Saba loves him like no other, and will do anything to save him.
The other is the one concerning Saba and her younger sibling Emmy.
Their relationship was more distant and the interactions between them restrained. The little conversation they had was always in the form of harsh words from Saba's side.
They often argued, as siblings will, but I think that they deep down cared for each other, even if they rarely ever got along.
Saba was upset for being left with a weak nine-year-old whose birth had costed her mother's life.
One of the other reasons was because Emmy wasn't Lugh. Saba would have rather had her be taken than him.
As the book goes on, their relationship strenghtens. I really enjoyed reading about the two, and hope that Emmy will have just as large of a role in the sequel.
The romance was very enjoyable and wasn't a big part of the story, which was appreciated.
Jack completely charmed me and I liked how their relationship wasn't rushed or overdramatic.
They were both such independent characters and I was surprised by how good they were for each other.
The two cons I can think of are these:
I had a hard time picturing the landscape and it took a while for the story to pick up.
Final verdict:
Blood red road is one of the best dystopians I've read.
Good characters, an exciting plot that will keep you hooked, with a straight-to-the-point writing style it top it all off.
I highly recommend it!