Dualed by Elsie Chapman

Dualed by Elsie Chapman

You or your Alt? Only one will survive.

The city of Kersh is a safe haven, but the price of safety is high. Everyone has a genetic Alternate—a twin raised by another family—and citizens must prove their worth by eliminating their Alts before their twentieth birthday. Survival means advanced schooling, a good job, marriage—life.

Fifteen-year-old West Grayer has trained as a fighter, preparing for the day when her assignment arrives and she will have one month to hunt down and kill her Alt. But then a tragic misstep shakes West’s confidence. Stricken with grief and guilt, she’s no longer certain that she’s the best version of herself, the version worthy of a future. If she is to have any chance of winning, she must stop running not only from her Alt, but also from love . . . though both have the power to destroy her.

Elsie Chapman's suspenseful YA debut weaves unexpected romance into a novel full of fast-paced action and thought-provoking philosophy. When the story ends, discussions will begin about this future society where every adult is a murderer and every child knows there is another out there who just might be better. (blurb from Goodreads)

Rating: R, 4 1/2 stars

Trigger warnings: graphic violence, death, familial death

I have a weird relationship with this book. I absolutely enjoyed it, but I had to take it really slow because parts were so intense. I’m not one for adrenaline--in fact, I hate most adrenaline-inducing activities. This book was quite adrenaline-inducing for me. At one point, I actually dreamed how I thought the book should end. It was rather bizarre that I physiologically reacted so strongly to this book, but don’t think that that’s a problem. Those reactions riveted me to the outcome of the novel.

It’s interesting, and I may get a lot of hate for this, but even though this book reminded me conceptually of The Hunger Games, I really did enjoy this book while I couldn’t finish The Hunger Games. I’m not sure why that is exactly, but I know that I appreciate West’s attitude from the beginning, while Katniss’ character is one of the reasons that I couldn’t finished The Hunger Games. I thought it was interesting to take such a violent concept and make it both individual and urban. I find that a lot of dystopian fiction is either violent on a grander scale or individual violence is moved out of an urban environment, even if that environment is merely a city park. For that matter, I enjoyed that Dualed rarely left it’s gritty urban setting. There was no green oasis that West retired to to take a break and wax philosophical about what her society meant. She was always on the move.

In the end, I think one of the reasons I liked this book so much was the pacing. The book is fast-paced from the beginning and it never slows down. For some books that doesn’t work, but I thought it worked really well in Dualed.

I’m intrigued by the fact that there is a sequel due for Dualed, and I’m really hoping it is as engaging as the first. I definitely recommend Dualed to any dystopian fans who don’t mind violence, because the book is really quite violent.

Dragonfly by Julia Golding

Dragonfly

by Julia Golding

Rating: 5 stars, PG-13

Summary: Princess Taoshira, or Tashi, and Prince Ramil, or Ram, are complete opposites. Taoshira, the Fourth Princess of the Blue Crescent Islands lives her life according to rules, rituals, and religions. She has been taught to guard her emotions and never let her own wants and needs overpower the good of her country. Ramil, the crown prince of Gerfal is a wild spirit who lives life to the fullest. These two are brought together when the powers-that-be in their respective countries decide that a marital union between the two lands is in order. Neither are pleased, but after much complaining, they decide to at least try to make the best of it. It all goes downhill from there: kidnapping, war, heresy, slavery, the list goes on and on. Along the way, through all of these trials, the two begin to see more in each other than just cultural differences. And by that, I mean they start to fall in love. The book has a happy ending, but also a lot of suspense to keep the reader wondering how it could be a good ending.

Opinions: One of the first things I noticed about Dragonfly was that it avoided a classic fantasy pitfall: basing invented cultures on real ones. I felt like all the different nations in this book had elements pulled from all sorts of real-life cultures, from European, to Asian, to African, but no one culture was more prominently used than another. Likewise, no culture in the book was overly influenced by one real-world country. Speaking from experience, this is harder than it seems, but Julia Golding did an excellent job. She also did an excellent job at crafting both a detailed religion and a very religious culture that, again, had no resemblance to current religions and religion-based cultures. I did get confused on the location of the different countries in relation to where the characters were a couple of times, but there is a map in the front of the book.

The romance in Dragonfly was really subtle and slow to come on, considering it was mentioned in the book jacket, but it did seem really natural. Tashi and Ram squabbled through much of the book, and there was no sudden shift from animosity to love; it was all pretty gradual.

I felt like the book was a really subtle social commentary, especially in the realm of religious tolerance. Tashi grew up in an extremely religious culture (though I still hesitate to call it a theocracy, at least by modern terms), and her beliefs become a pretty significant sub-plot. The book also says quite a bit about giving people chances, as well as what can come of misunderstanding between different cultures.

I gave the book 5 stars because I absolutely loved it! I didn't inhale it like I do a lot of books that I really enjoy, but I think I enjoyed it all the more for not reading it hours on end. I predict that this will be the Graceling of this summer (I read Graceling early last summer, and it ended up being my top book for the year), if not this year. I actually noticed quite a few similarities between the two books, but nothing negative and, in retrospect, they are probably simply a result of genre conventions. I gave the book a PG-13 rating for violence, as the end of the book was really quite violent (though not unnecessarily so), and for very mild sexuality, almost all of which was passing comments and conversation rather than actions. The book is rather long, and it took awhile for the book to grow on me, but I did read the last hundred pages in one sitting.

A warning to those who read fantasy for the magic: this is fantasy only by virtue of taking place in an entirely made-up world. In that way, it's similar to General Winston's Daughter, which I also reviewed. Still, it's a very enjoyable world with a well-developed world and characters, and enough plot variety to capture both the action and the romance fans.