Main Character: Saba
Love Interest: Jack
Series: Dust lands, Book 1
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads
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.
Even though this book doesn’t come out until next month, I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about it and all of the good things made me so excited to read it. The minute I was able to crack this sucker open, I was excited. We meet Saba and her twin brother, Lugh and their story unfolds right before us. Saba and Lugh live in Silverlake with their father and their younger sister, Emmi.
They live a simple life, just the four of them out in the desert where the only neighbors around are sand and Proctor. In Silverlake, each day blends into the next because there’s not much to do. Saba can tell that Lugh is getting restless. They just turned 18 and their lives should be beginning now but for some reason, their father won’t move away from Silverlake. Lugh’s life is singing like that Sugarland song, “There’s gotta be something more, gotta be more than this. I need a little less hard times, I need a little more bliss….” and one day, Lugh gets pissed off and walks off with Saba following right behind him.
The bond betwen Lugh and Saba is strong. There isn’t a thing that they wouldn’t do for each other and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that these two loved the hell out of each other. In Saba’s mind, Lugh was everything to her. Her friend, her brother, her everything. And when he gets taken by the Tonton, she vows that she’ll find him and bring him back.
And that’s how the story begins.
The interesting thing about this book is the way that it’s written. It’s written exactly the way that Saba thinks and talks. It’s written in a poor man’s English, all broken and sloppy but it fit with the tone of the story. The story revolves around Saba’s journey on getting her brother back. She doesn’t know where to begin searching for Lugh but that doesn’t stop her from going. Right from the beginning, I loved Lugh. I thought, hell I’d rush out and find him too if he were my brother but it’s while we’re getting to know Saba that I really appreciated Lugh.
Saba is stubborn as hell and more than once, I wanted to pop her in the head even though she can probably kick my ass. The way that she treated those that wanted to be her friends and the way that she treated Emmi, made it very hard to like Saba. She’s got this strong personality that you’d want on your side in a fight but personally, she got on my nerves.
She goes through a lot and there are times when I had to let her slide on a lot of stuff but the way she was with Emmi never failed to piss me off. The things she said to her and the always leaving her behind thing annoyed the snot out of me but over the course of the book, she learns the error of her ways and when she finally gets it, I sighed a breath of relief.
The introduction of Jack had me all excited. I loved getting to know him and the others that joined their little army. Epona, Ash, Ike, Tommo…were all fantastic characters that came to life through the words in this story. My heart broke and it was made whole again and it thumped inside my chest all throughout the book. I enjoyed the ride but more often than not, Saba got on my hot damn nerves.
This book was a great story and I’m very much looking forward to the next book but it took a long while for Saba to grow on me and because of that, I spent a great deal of the book pissed off. While Saba got on my nerves, the other parts of the story, the other characters were able to entertain me and keep me invested in the story.
I’d definitely recommend this book to lovers of the dystopian genre. Young did a wonderful job of creating a world that readers could easily fall into and if you enjoyed the Hunger Games, you’ll enjoy this one too.
..and that’s your scoop!
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com
