Rebel Hearts

"Rebel Hearts," by Moria Young, is the sequel to the fantastically gruesome "Blood Red Road."
     Since Lugh was captured by the Tonton at Silverlake Saba has always relied on her instincts and gut feelings.  Instinct and gut feelings got her out of Hopetown.  Instincts and gut feelings got her out of Freedom Fields.  But Saba's instincts and gut feelings may be failing her as she races back east when she hears a rumor that Jack has fallen in with the Tonton.  In an attempt to save him, Saba endangers the lives of everyone she's cared about.  As the death toll piles up, she will have to debate what is worth what:  Is having her happy ending worth the life of her sister? Is having all she ever wanted worth losing everyone that ever stood by her?

Say that "Blood Red Road" was the second best contemporary dystopian novel.  "Rot and Ruin" would be at the top, the best, "Article 5" would be in between the middle and the bottom, and "Hunger Games would be festering somewhere below the bottom.  "Rebel Hearts" would be somewhere between "Article 5" and "The Hunger Games."  I swear, it was awful.
        "The Blood Red Road" is the second best contemporary dystopian novel because there's blood and fighting and general goriness.  Epic fights to the death against giant worms, cage fighting, burning down the town in which there was cage fighting, burning down really anything that came close (including demented sun kings and giant worms) . . . Ah, the glory.  There was a bit of romance her and there too, which wasn't so bad.   But "Rebel Hearts" takes it to a whole new level.  It's "Oh, Jack, I miss you" here and "Oh, I want Jack" there and "Jack smells nice" in the middle mixed in with "Oh, I think I might love *insert name here 'cause I won't ruin it for you even though we all knew it was gonna happen*" with a touch of "Oh, *insert name here, I'm not going to tell you because it'll ruin it and it's stupid and random* loves me?"  IT'S ALL MUSHY!  And not fun at all.
        Okay, so, in "Blood Red Road" I sort of got the picture that Saba was like Clint Eastwood in all those Westerns.  You know, the lone cowboy (or cowgirl or whatever you want to call it) who rides into town, gets filled up with some sort of righteous anger, burns the place down, and overthrows the evil mayor, all well having fun and making friends with a merry band of outlaws.  In "Rebel Hearts" Saba is like that in the beginning of the book, righteous anger and what not, but eventually she gets whittled down into a princess who runs around in dresses.  Excuse me?  The Angel of Death is no princess, I don't care about that Sky-person-girl's ruling.
         I mentioned that there are some other mushy-male components in this.  There are.  They are unneeded and unwanted and do absolutely no good for anything anywhere anyhow anywhy.  They should just not be there. Period.  I guess the "random person loves me" was inevitable in some sense.  It's random, but it was mentioned slightly in the previous book and it will probably be a big part of the next book, because it seems that this is to be a trilogy (but from this book, I say they cut it off now, and spare us all the horror).  The other new male component just detracts from everything.  And turns Saba into a princess.  And everyone knew that it was going to happen, it seems, except for Saba, because I figured out that it was going to happen back in Hopetown but our newly-whittled princess here had no clue.
         So, basically what I'm trying to get at is that this is a decent book--for the first part of it.  Then it just goes bonkers.  It seems, and no offense to Moria Young here, but it seems that she forgot the parameters she set out for her characters because they seem to be operating outside of them.
        On a completely different note, DeMalo is crazy.
        So, anyway, "Blood Red Road" and "Rebel Hearts" both seem to be of the "Dust Land Trilogy".  (I didn't realize that the name of "Rebel Hearts" was "Rebel Hearts" 'cause "Dust Land" was bigger on the cover so I thought that the whole trilogy was called "Rebel Hearts Trilogy" and that better not be the case 'cause that would be a pretty bad name for a dystopian novel.  (Worse than "The Hunger Games.")  I don't know what the third one is or when it will come out, but I'll keep an eye for that one.
         Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that Saba's lost her way.  And if she doesn't find it soon, or if she finds it leads into the arms of some handsome male, I may have to put the book down and walk away.  Because Saba's supposed to be my warrior, not my damsel in distress.

As the author's bio says, "Visit www.dustlandsbooks.com to learn more."  It's nothing unusual, really.