The First Book Was Better
Rebel Heart
By Moira Young
The Dust Lands Series, Book 2
# Pgs: 448
_________________________________________________________________________________
Overview:
There is a price on Saba’s head. She brought down a ruthless tyrant and saved her kidnapped brother. But winning has come at a terrible cost. Saba is haunted by her past—and a new enemy is on the rise, an enemy who searches for her across the Dust Lands.
Saba needs Jack: his moonlit eyes, his reckless courage, his wild heart. But Jack has left. And her brother is haunted by ghosts of his own. Then news comes that tells her Jack can never be trusted again. Deceived and betrayed, haunted and hunted, Saba will need all of her warrior’s strength just to survive. For the enemy has cunning plans of his own…
_________________________________________________________________________________
Review:
This is the second installment in Moira Young's Dust Lands series, and with this things definitely got more complicated. In the previous book review I mentioned that things get worse before they get better; I can't say with a definite answer that things are going to get better after this book, but I can tell you that things definitely got worse with this one. I don't mean to say that Moira made a mistake or anything, I'm just talking about the story itself.
Of course, with this novel I found myself a little more... frustrated with the main character's choices. It's a good thing because main characters can't be perfect all the time, and yet I was hoping for something akin to what I found in the first book. For a good portion of the book I couldn't help but question Saba's sanity. It seemed like she was suffering from PTSD or something; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that she never really seemed to recover from it. For the rest of the story there was something that was faintly reminiscent to her choices from the first book--the brash decision to rescue a loved one--the consequences of such a decision--and yet, her choices didn't seem to stem from boundless determination and stubbornness this time around. Rather, it seemed from a sort of weakness about her character that cause Saba to make her decisions, and that weakness didn't match at all with what I've come to understand was the character Saba. In this, it seemed like she was a completely different person with yet a similar storyline.
I suppose if I thought about it, what happens makes sense. The PTSD thing wasn't the thing that I had a problem with; it drew me closer to Saba as a character, made me feel more compassion and sympathy for her overall. It's just... that whole weakness thing. It makes sense if it comes from the loss of Jack and the need to get him back; it's a different sort of love for Jack than what she felt for her brother in the first book, so perhaps she can't help but feel weak without him. This, even though it makes sense and should (in theory) work, it doesn't. In the first book Saba was developed to make us see her as this strong, independent, fierce young woman. In the second book, it's almost like she loses her center and Jack had been her support; without him she's crippled. It works in theory and sort of on paper, it's just that because of the way that Moira Young wrote this everything we'd come to understand about Saba would changed. It didn't work as well as it could've.
As we didn't learn much about Lugh in the first book, it was kind of shocking to see him much more in this book. In the first book Saba idolized him to the extreme, and we'd come to, by extension, see Lugh in this heroic way. However I doubted her brother's sincerity in this book. Everything we'd been told he was in the first book conflicted with the evidence that came from the second book. It's understandable in what Lugh had to go through by the end of the first book (which still isn't revealed in the second), and that bad things continue to happen to him. I've come to think of Lugh as being used to getting his own way. Now that Saba's gotten a touch of independence in her life, with Lugh back in it, it seems like more and more control has to be relinquished by both to make the twin-ship that they had once held easily before work. They'd both been through so much tragedy and travesty, it's understandable that the dynamic between them would change.
What pleased me to no end is that it seemed like the relationship between Saba and her younger sister, Emmi, seemed to have improved as well. They've reached an understanding and easy love that they hadn't had before.
Saba makes a lot of mistakes in this book that make me feel for her in this sort of protective way; well, not so much a lot of mistakes as a few, big mistakes. The way that the other characters in this book treated her also got me angry; often blaming her for their problems and walking all over her. Throughout it all, I could only feel compassion and sympathy for the character that is Saba.
Moira Young continues the dystopian society, drama, mindless violence, and light romance in this second installment in the Dust Lands series. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The similarities between the first and second book have me biting my lips a little bit, and yet the dynamic between the characters as compared between the two have changed drastically.
If I had to, I'd rate this book as a three out of five, and recommend it to people who loved the first book, who love dystopian societies, and who love a book that's different (because Young wrote it in that same, strangely interesting manner that she did in the first book). Hope you read this series; it deserves a look at.
Thanks for reading, sorry for babbling, leave a comment if you're interested. Thanks again!
Of course, with this novel I found myself a little more... frustrated with the main character's choices. It's a good thing because main characters can't be perfect all the time, and yet I was hoping for something akin to what I found in the first book. For a good portion of the book I couldn't help but question Saba's sanity. It seemed like she was suffering from PTSD or something; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that she never really seemed to recover from it. For the rest of the story there was something that was faintly reminiscent to her choices from the first book--the brash decision to rescue a loved one--the consequences of such a decision--and yet, her choices didn't seem to stem from boundless determination and stubbornness this time around. Rather, it seemed from a sort of weakness about her character that cause Saba to make her decisions, and that weakness didn't match at all with what I've come to understand was the character Saba. In this, it seemed like she was a completely different person with yet a similar storyline.
I suppose if I thought about it, what happens makes sense. The PTSD thing wasn't the thing that I had a problem with; it drew me closer to Saba as a character, made me feel more compassion and sympathy for her overall. It's just... that whole weakness thing. It makes sense if it comes from the loss of Jack and the need to get him back; it's a different sort of love for Jack than what she felt for her brother in the first book, so perhaps she can't help but feel weak without him. This, even though it makes sense and should (in theory) work, it doesn't. In the first book Saba was developed to make us see her as this strong, independent, fierce young woman. In the second book, it's almost like she loses her center and Jack had been her support; without him she's crippled. It works in theory and sort of on paper, it's just that because of the way that Moira Young wrote this everything we'd come to understand about Saba would changed. It didn't work as well as it could've.
As we didn't learn much about Lugh in the first book, it was kind of shocking to see him much more in this book. In the first book Saba idolized him to the extreme, and we'd come to, by extension, see Lugh in this heroic way. However I doubted her brother's sincerity in this book. Everything we'd been told he was in the first book conflicted with the evidence that came from the second book. It's understandable in what Lugh had to go through by the end of the first book (which still isn't revealed in the second), and that bad things continue to happen to him. I've come to think of Lugh as being used to getting his own way. Now that Saba's gotten a touch of independence in her life, with Lugh back in it, it seems like more and more control has to be relinquished by both to make the twin-ship that they had once held easily before work. They'd both been through so much tragedy and travesty, it's understandable that the dynamic between them would change.
What pleased me to no end is that it seemed like the relationship between Saba and her younger sister, Emmi, seemed to have improved as well. They've reached an understanding and easy love that they hadn't had before.
Saba makes a lot of mistakes in this book that make me feel for her in this sort of protective way; well, not so much a lot of mistakes as a few, big mistakes. The way that the other characters in this book treated her also got me angry; often blaming her for their problems and walking all over her. Throughout it all, I could only feel compassion and sympathy for the character that is Saba.
Moira Young continues the dystopian society, drama, mindless violence, and light romance in this second installment in the Dust Lands series. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The similarities between the first and second book have me biting my lips a little bit, and yet the dynamic between the characters as compared between the two have changed drastically.
If I had to, I'd rate this book as a three out of five, and recommend it to people who loved the first book, who love dystopian societies, and who love a book that's different (because Young wrote it in that same, strangely interesting manner that she did in the first book). Hope you read this series; it deserves a look at.
Thanks for reading, sorry for babbling, leave a comment if you're interested. Thanks again!
No comments:
Post a Comment