Friday, 14 September 2012

Blood Red Road by Moira Young (Young Adult)

2nd June 2011, Marion LLoyd Books
544 pages, Paperback
Review copy
Teenage fiction (13+), Sci-fi adventure

Fast moving action adventure with undescribed violence and unusual spelling


"Saba’s twin is golden. She is his living shadow. He is strong and beautiful. She is scrawny and dark. But nothing will separate them…
Raised in isolated Silverlake, Saba is ignorant of the violent and dangerous world beyond, where life is cheap and survival is hard. But when her twin brother is snatched by mysterious black-robed riders, she sets out on an epic quest to rescue him. How will Saba find him in a wild, scorching and lawless land? Every step of her journey sizzles with danger in this addictive futuristic thriller, which beats with a powerful, red-blooded heart."

The Mole's Review

Set in a post apocalyptic future the story starts fast, hits the ground running and doesn't really slow down.

I found the language and spelling at first a difficult thing to get a handle on and it made reading it, for me, a little slower than I would have liked and I would like to hear the accents that the characters would have used - there is certainly more than one. It's worth putting that to one side though.

There were a couple of 'niggles' though..
i) As you read you become convinced that a lot of time has passed but the calendar doesn't seem to move at your expected rate. Having said that you don't get time to think about that until the book is finished. And what a finish!
ii) When Saba sees an aircraft for the first time in here life she immediately knows what it is. How?

Fast, lots of action, non-described violence, rounded characters - there is a lot going for this book and it is easy to see why it became a winner of Costa Children's Book Award.

A great sci-fi adventure that will be enjoyed by readers of The Hunger Games.

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