Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Title: Blood Red Road

Author: Moira Young
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Acquired: Bought
Age Group: Young Adult

Grade: 87% or B+

Buy It: Amazon

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 bearing four cloaked horsemen, Saba's world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on a 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.

My Thoughts::
This was a book that I thought it would be a long time before I read. I read great reviews for it, and I wanted to read it pretty darn badly. But I was going to have to buy it myself, which is kind of difficult for me to do. Thankfully I was able to snag the last copy for half of the price when my local Borders closed.

At first I was a bit put off with how the book was narrated. It sounded so hickish...I usually have a problem with books that try to make me deal with the character's accent non stop. Can't they just tell us their accent and let us imagine it? Do we have to play the guessing game to decide what they're trying to say? But this book was different and I'm not sure how. It just sounded so natural and after a couple of chapters I didn't even notice it anymore. Something else that bothered me some was the lack of quotation marks. At certain points I was unsure about who was saying what or if they were even saying anything at all.

Saba was such a strong female character that annoyed me a lot. She was tough and usually had a good personality, but...I couldn't get passed some things. One being how she treated Emmy. I knowwww most of you go over this and sympathize with her. But guys, if this were a movie and they weren't on this horrible journey..I'd be saying some pretty graphic things to Saba over the TV. Way to eff up a kids outlook on her life for the first 9 years. Twisssted. She was also just way too stubborn and irrational. How many times does she have to be told the same thing? Uggh. Enough ranting about Saba. I loved Emmy and Lugh and Jack especially and pretty much every other character. They had me melting with their awesomeness.

Overall I think that Blood Red Road was an amazing adventurous dystopian read. It focused on the adventure and didn't rely on it being a dystopia. Though Saba grinded my gears, I found this book to be very exciting, heartwarming, and enjoyable.