Review: Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Summary (from Goodreads):

Saba lives in Silverlake, a wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms where her family scavenge from landfills left by the long-gone Wrecker civilization. After four cloaked horsemen kidnap her beloved twin brother Lugh, she teams up with daredevil Jack and the Free Hawks, a girl gang of Revolutionaries. 

Saba learns that she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Saba and her new friends stage a showdown that change the course of her civilization.

Blood Red Road is just insane.

It is peculiar writing style and it is reading the stars and it is cage fights and it is crazy ass giant killer worms and it is bloodstone growing warmer as you get closer to your heart's desire. And I loved it.

Dammit. As soon as I got used to the lack of quotation marks and deliberate misspellings prying this book from my hands was near impossible. It's honestly one of the most addictive books I've ever read mostly due to the characters that Blood Red Road is about. Saba, the protagonist, is one of those characters that you're not sure you will like at the beginning but as you read on and discover why they are the way they and as you see them change throughout the novel you really start to care for them and understand them. Saba is not a perfect character who is on such a different level you can't relate to her, even though this is a dystopian book the fact Saba has flaws makes her relatable to the reader and just generally makes Blood Red Road a more engrossing book to read.

The other characters such as Emmi - Saba's younger sister - Pa, The Hawks, Ike, Jack etc. are written equally as realistically and all develop as characters as new experiences are thrown at them rather just remaining the same throughout the whole of Blood Red Road. Although I loved most of the characters admittedly Lugh, Saba's twin brother and who being kidnapped starts off the whole adventure/rescue/quest, didn't really appeal to me and this triggered me to not really understand why Saba would go through so much trouble and pain to find Lugh. This is probably because Lugh only appears at the beginning and ending of Blood Red Road and is only mentioned by Saba when she explains how perfect he is so there wasn't much information about him given in the novel for me to care about him. It would have been nice to have seen more flashbacks in the novel about Saba and Lugh's childhood for readers to understand why Saba loves him so dearly but that's only a tiny thing I would have liked changed and I'm sure we'll find out more about Lugh in the next book.

While the basic story line is pretty simple, a girl going to the ends of the world to find her sibling, it's actually very enjoyable to read. I'd really like to find out more about the history of the world in Blood Red Road in the installment because although we did get glimpses of these 'wreckers' and the King we haven't got the full story yet.

So the plot is great, the characters are awesome and lastly but definitely not least, the romance in this book is absolutely adorable. Jack and Saba are officially one of my favourite sort-of-kinda couples from YA fiction, their chemistry is so obvious to everybody around them and to be honest, from the second Jack made his first appearance in the novel I knew he would be perfect for my bristly but lovable Saba.

I can't wait to get my hands on the next book, Rebel Heart, which I believe is already out because I want more Jack and Saba, I want more Hawks and I just really want to know who this mysterious-kinda-creepy-but-weirdly-captivating DeMalo guy is.

Music choice: Simply because of Saba's never wavering need to find Lugh and not because I'm implying an incestuous relationship between the twins.. I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab For Cutie 

itunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/plans/id79018972