Rebel Heart

Dustlands: Rebel Heart is the second book in the Dustlands series, and the author is Moira Young. Rebel Heart is the sequel to “Blood RedRoad”, Moira Young’s debut novel, and the third Dustlands novel “Raging Star” will be released in April 2014. The first Dustlands novel was about a girl named Saba who journies through an apocalyptic wasteland to rescue her kidnapped brother Lugh. Rebel Heart is a Dystopian fiction/action adventure novel about what happens after Saba saves her brother. Basically, Saba and her small group of friends and family journey to a place called “The Big Water” to live a happy life there because every other part of the world is bad. But a lot of things happen that mix up the story along the way.

Rebel Heart takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where most aspects of modern civilization are lost, and natural aspects are majorly changed. The people who left behind reminants of today’s civilization are referred to as “wreckers” by the characters. The protagonist of this story is Saba. What the story is about is after Saba saves her brother Lugh in Blood Red Road, she and him, their nine year-old sister Emmi, and their friend Tommo head to a place called the “Big Water”, which is rumored to be a paradise compared to the rest of the world around them. But Saba starts having visions and hallucinations haunting her mind as a result of her previous journey, such as seeing ghosts of friends who died. But the main problem is that she becomes obsessed with a boy she grew a crush on in the previous book named Jack. He had told her that he would meet her at the Big Water, but had some business to take care of along the way. But along the way, her friend Maev tags along, and Saba receives information from her that tells her that Jack is not coming to the Big Water. Because of her desperation to see Jack again, she abandons her group to go find Jack. But as always, they follow her. Her group makes other main plans, but Saba always has some secret plan to sneak away and find Jack while at the same time do what her group tells her to do. The main obstacle standing between Saba’s group and their objective is the Tonton. The Tonton is a group of people who are trying to take control of the world by force, and Saba had made an unfriendly relationship with them in the first book. She is still wanted and being hunted by them throughout the story. And it doesn’t make things easier for them when she has to pass through their territory along her journey. The leader of the Tonton is a man named DeMalo, who is the antagonist of the story. Saba does meet him along the way, and when she does, she learns a VERY interesting and unexpected secret about the Tonton. Because of her obsession with Jack and her strange behavior, Lugh starts to become upset with her and their relationship worsens throughout the story, which is upsetting because it kind of ruins the purpose of the first book. Saba faces danger, makes new friends, and comes across unexpected twists and turns as she ventures through the post-apocalyptic, broken world in this story.

I thought this book was AWESOME, and just as good as Blood Red Road. Saba was a pretty good protagonist. She is brave, tough, and has good intentions. Although she was very negative and sometimes made bad decisions, she had very good character development. DeMalo is a very interesting and intriguing antagonist. Like I said before, he has a very unexpected secret he reveals, but I don’t want to spoil anything. Emmi was awesome because she was very tough, smart, and responsible for a nine year-old, and at the same time had the silly attitude all nine-year olds have. I hated Lugh because all he did was be mean to Saba after she just saved his life and did not help anyone in any way. He was a terrible character who did not improve at all throughout the story. I didn’t really like the actual plot of the story, but I loved what happened throughout the story. There is lots of action-packed violent scenes, unexpected twists and turns, and intriguing suspense that builds up throughout the story. My favorite part about this book is the setting. I just love the idea of our civilization being long gone, and transformed into a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is just trying to survive. It makes the story a lot more interesting. It’s interesting when Saba finds reminants of todays world and makes the reader figure out what it is. For example, when Saba finds a building and describes it to be made of stone, have fancy arched windows, a big iron cross on top of it, and long rows of benches inside of it. Obviously it’s a modern church.  It’s also interesting to see what happened to the natural world because of us, like when Saba walked through a forest of red, leafless trees. And that’s not naturally right because it takes place in the middle of the summer. Rebel Heart contains all of the awesome aspects that Blood Red Road had, and I cannot wait for Raging Star to come out in April. Rebel Heart and Blood Red Road are my two favorite books that I’ve read so far, and you should read them too.

Book Review by Alex O.