Book Blurb:
Chosen to embrace her true identity. Chosen to follow her destiny. Chosen to change her world.
Mari is an Earth Walker, heir to the unique healing powers of her Clan, but she has been forced to turn from her duties, until she is chosen by a special animal ally, altering her destiny forever. When a deadly attack tears her world apart, Mari reveals the strength of her powers and the forbidden secret of her dual nature as she embarks on a mission to save herself and her people. It is not until Nik, the son of the leader from a rival, dominating Tribe, strays across her path that Mari experiences something she has never felt before…
Now evil is coming, and with it, a force more terrible and destructive than the world has ever seen, leaving Mari to cast the shadows from the earth. By breaking Clan Law and forming an alliance with Nik, she must make herself ready. Ready to save her people. Ready to save herself and Nik. Ready to embrace her true destiny…and battle the forces that threaten to destroy them all.
Find out more about the book on Goodreads and pick up a copy from Amazon
My Review:
4 Out Of 5 Stars
Genre: Dystopian, Mystery, Romance, Supernatural, Survival, Suspense, Teen--
The coolest part of this story to me is that this is not another world, regardless of the magic and complete unknown, but instead this is actually a distopian story where something terrible occurred and decimated the earth as we know it and these new changes are due to evolution, deformity, and survival based. Once I realized that this was the earth, I kept looking for clues as to what was familiar and how the changes came about.
I will admit that I was a little overwhelmed by the length of the book, over 600 pages, and at times I felt like the plot or action dragged a little bit and my attention would wane. I could have done with a lot of the side stuff chopped out and and less general tangents or build up. The second half of the book was SO MUCH BETTER! It was full of action, danger, conflict and relationship dynamics and I blew through this part, 100% engaged in the story. Overall the idea of the world, the underlying plot of a brewing battle of good versus evil and the evolution of these people was a very interesting concept and I am excited to see what will happen next in the series.
The story is narrated by three distinct voices, each with their own culture, path and goals.
First we have Mari who is an Earth Walker, or at least half an Earth Walker and her mother is the Moon Woman, able to clean the tribe from the moon madness that turns men into violent beasts and drives women to depression. The Earth Walkers were an interesting species, controlled by a form of madness, desperate to be cleaned. I loved how Mari evolved as a person through the story, becoming a stoic girl to a powerful dedicated woman. And the forced relationship between her and her arch enemy was one of the best things in the book.
Nik is a Companion, which live high in the trees with their bonded terrier or shepherd dog companions, shepherds are leaders and terriers are hunters, but Nik has neither even though he is the son of the tribe leader. He is desperate for a puppy to chose him so he can feel complete and needed, but fears that may never happen. The dynamic between the Companions and the Earth Walkers was messed up, mainly due to the Companions idea, with no concept of Earth Walkers having their own ways and beliefs.
Dead eye was creepy, awful and oh so interesting. I almost always find myself rooting for the bad guy, and a person who skins animals and humans while alive probably fits that description perfectly- but he was still really cool and interesting. Dead Eye is part of The People, the terrifying clan that live in the ruins of the city from the past, who capture, skin and eat other tribes as well as their own people, split into Harvesters and Hunters they steal the skin off the still leaving prey to try and fuse with their own ruined flesh (sounded like victims of maybe radiation/nuclear poisoning from the sun explosion the book hints a to me). Dead eye has a vision of what he wants and the determination to make it happen, making him the perfect villain to watch out for, and it was interesting to see from this view point.
Books with dogs pretty much like a main character are pretty close to perfect in my opinion- this being my first of that kind, I recommend that there are more soon so I can gobble them up. I loved the idea the dogs bonded with a Companion, but I did wonder why the only two kinds of dogs were terriers and Shepherds, why no other kind of dog?
The story ends kind of on a cliffhanger with lots of awful danger, don't expect to wrap up or be happily ever after. I can't wait to jump back into this world for more adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment