Summary: 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.
Blood Red Road has a searing pace, a poetically minimal writing style, violent action, and an epic love story. Moira Young is one of the most promising and startling new voices in teen fiction.
I read Blood Red Road for the dystopian unit in my YA II class. There were three different books to choose from but since I had already read the other two I was kind of stuck with this one. But out of the three, this one has ended up being my favorite!
Blood Red Road has a strong main character and also strong supporting characters. Saba is on a journey to find her twin brother, Lugh, along with a group of people who she cannot seem to shake. Despite her many attempts to get them to leave her alone so she can continue the journey on her own, she fails.
Two of my favorite characters are Emmi and Jack. Emmi is Saba’s younger sister and Saba hates her. She blames her for things that are not Emmi’s fault and she has never forgiven her for the whole nine-years of her life. Emmi is constantly proving Saba wrong and is a very smart, young girl. She has been paying more attention than Saba has realized and her knowledge helped save them many times. Jack is impossible not to love. He is sarcastic and funny and charming. He drives Saba crazy but she always finds herself having to make herself annoyed by him because even she falls for his charm every once in a while. Many times he had me smiling because of a snarky remark or some other kind of funny comeback. Saba always says that he makes a fool of her.
There were only a few problems that I had with this book. First, the way it was written was kind of annoying. There is a lack of punctuation throughout and the characters talk with an accent and the author wrote it so the reader would read it in that accent. Throughout the book I noticed the accents kind of die down, which is understandable because it is such a long book and I can see how that would be hard to keep up on. Another thing that bothered me was Saba. She constantly was complaining about something or yelling and someone and she did the same things over and over again expecting new results. She does it so often that you already know how the “scene” is going to play out because it’s happened so many times before.
Other than those two things this book is really good. There is action, romance and humor. I think it would be enjoyed amongst all guys and girls of all ages even though its told from a young girl’s perspective because it’s such a high-pace, action filled book. Readers who enjoyed The Hunger Games would enjoyed Blood Red Road as well.
