Title: The Glass Arrow
Author: Kristen Simmons
Publisher: Tor Teen
Publication Date: February 10, 2015
Genre: Young Adult // Romance // Dystopia
Format: Physical Copy
Source: Publisher
The Handmaid’s Tale meets Blood Red Road in Glass Arrow, the story of Aya, who lives with a small group of women on the run from the men who hunt them, men who want to auction off breeding rights to the highest bidder.
In a world where females are scarce and are hunted, then bought and sold at market for their breeding rights, 15-year old Aya has learned how to hide. With a ragtag bunch of other women and girls, she has successfully avoided capture and eked out a nomadic but free existence in the mountains. But when Aya’s luck runs out and she’s caught by a group of businessmen on a hunting expedition, fighting to survive takes on a whole new meaning (goodreads).
Wow. The Glass Arrow was nothing short of a breathe of short air!
Plot: Scientific advancement has done wonders for society, until those advancements are found to have a negative affect on the reproductive women, and they are sold and traded to the highest bidder. Aya and her family live in the mountains, away from men and their greed. What I really liked about The Glass Arrow was that this book had almost no downtime. I mean, the book opens right in the middle of an intense scene and it just picks up from there. The Glass Arrow is told in four parts with each part, it isn't even until you reach the 75% mark of the novel that you actually learn what a glass arrow even is. The only thing keeping me from giving this book a full 5 stars is the last act. While I was in tears, I still felt that it ended a bit too cleanly. Nonetheless, I closed the book with a smile on my face.
Characters: Usually in dystopias, the female leads are either extremely jaded or naive to the world that they live in. I liked that Aya lived somewhere in between those two categories. Sure she is jaded after everything that she has lived through, but she also had a very sweet and unsure side. I loved the scenes between her and the love interest Kiran, because that's when Aya began to open up more and I felt that I had a better picture of her category. The romance in The Glass Arrow was very sweet and a nice burn. Each characters was explored over the course of 300 pages, while the true conflict at hand was addressed.
The secondary characters were equally as fascinating and I wish there were more pages to get inside of their heads. There were some characters who seemed to be completely villainous characters, only for Simmons to give some depth to and completely change my opinion of said character.
World Building: I mentioned earlier that we the reader follow Aya throughout her journey which made the world more realistic in my head. Somehow, Simmons was able to create a world that was equal parts high fantasy and dystopian. It worked and it worked well.
Short N Sweet: The Glass Arrow is an adventure that will have you "awwing" one page and holding your breath the next. This book is NOT to be ignored!
Labels: 4.5 stars, book review, kristen simmons, review, the glass arrow, tor teen
