Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Published by Margaret K. McElderry (a division of Simon & Schuster) on June 7, 2011

Blood Red Road is a young adult novel and, as an old adult, I’m not part of its target demographic.  I thought I might like it anyway; I still enjoy the Heinlein juveniles I was reading as a kid and I’m generally a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction.  Blood Red Road is apparently a post-apocalyptic story (we’re told that reading and writing have largely become lost skills) but the nature of the apocalyptic event is never revealed.  Although the characters seem human enough, it’s not even clear to me that this story takes place on Earth; I can’t imagine any sort of apocalypse that would produce giant carnivorous Dune-style sandworms (recast as “hellwurms,” these have legs and claws).  Too much in this novel is left unexplained, perhaps because no credible explanation could be concocted (e.g., what kind of weapon is a “bolt shooter” and how does it work in the absence of a power source?).  The gaps in narrative logic are one of many reasons the novel just didn’t work for me.

Eighteen-year-old Saba has always blamed her nine-year-old sister Emmi for their mother’s death during childbirth.  When their father dies while trying to prevent five horsemen from stealing her twin brother Lugh, Saba suddenly finds herself in charge of Emmi’s welfare.  She twice tries to dump Emmi on the only responsible adults she can find so that she can rescue Lugh, but she can’t rid herself of Emmi that easily (after all, the conventions to which the novel adheres require Saba to learn to love her kid sister).  Saba undergoes a couple of ordeals that test her mettle as she tracks down her brother’s captors.  She also falls in love with the guy she keeps pretending to hate.

My most significant gripe about this novel is its utter predictability.  Saba’s adventures are predictable, the love story is predictable, and Saba learns predictable lessons like “nobody asks to be born into this world” and “never give up.”  The story is too shallow to generate interest, much less dramatic tension.  Although Saba lives in a violent world, the violence she experiences is so far from graphic that it’s difficult to take seriously.  That’s probably a plus for impressionable young adults but the muted tone robs the story of its potential power.

Another complaint:  there are elements in the story that border on fantasy, from a “heartstone” that grows warm when Saba is “near her heart’s desire” to a pet crow that might be the smartest character in the book.  So is this a realistic story of a post-apocalyptic future or a fantasy romance?  I think it tries to be both and doesn’t succeed very well at either one.

I give Moira Young credit for having her characters speak in a consistent voice, but I found the voice troubling.  It resembles the language spoken by the less educated characters in a TV western crossed with the language spoken by TV hillbillies.  (In fact, Young’s characters sound like they’re imitating the characters on Firefly -- a wonderfully funny show that exploits that style of speaking for comedic effect.)  Language would change after an apocalyptic event but it would evolve into something new; words like “britches” that have all but disappeared from our vocabulary would not make a sudden reappearance.

In short, I thought the novel was predictable, unoriginal and unconvincing.  On a positive note, the story moves along at a quick pace and Young’s writing style is lively.  For those reasons, young readers might enjoy it -- particularly those who haven’t been exposed to truly well-written examples of post-apocalyptic fiction and who might not realize that Blood Red Road suffers from comparison.  To be fair, the marketing materials claim the book is appropriate for readers who are 14 or older.  To a 14-year-old looking for a post-apocalyptic love story, I might recommend the novel; to other readers, not so much.  As an adult who reviews novels for other adults, I have to rate this one:

NOT RECOMMENDED