Blight | Alexandra Duncan
Published by: Greenwillow Books, May 30th 2017
Genre: YA, Dystopia, Science Fiction
Pages: 528
Format: Ebook
Source: Greenwillow, via Edelweiss
Seventeen-year-old Tempest Torres has lived on the AgraStar farm north of Atlanta since she was found outside the gates at the age of five. Now she’s part of the security force guarding the fence and watching for scavengers—people who would rather steal genetically engineered food from the company than work for it. When a group of such rebels accidentally sets off an explosion in the research compound, it releases into the air a blight that kills every living thing in its path—including humans. With blight-resistant seeds in her pocket, Tempest teams up with a scavenger boy named Alder and runs for help. But when they finally arrive at AgraStar headquarters, they discover that there’s an even bigger plot behind the blight—and it’s up to them to stop it from happening again. A fast-paced action-adventure story that is Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake meets Nancy Farmer’s House of the Scorpion.
Seventeen-year-old Tempest Torres has lived on the AgraStar farm north of Atlanta since she was found outside the gates at the age of five. Now she’s part of the security force guarding the fence and watching for scavengers—people who would rather steal genetically engineered food from the company than work for it. When a group of such rebels accidentally sets off an explosion in the research compound, it releases into the air a blight that kills every living thing in its path—including humans. With blight-resistant seeds in her pocket, Tempest teams up with a scavenger boy named Alder and runs for help. But when they finally arrive at AgraStar headquarters, they discover that there’s an even bigger plot behind the blight—and it’s up to them to stop it from happening again. A fast-paced action-adventure story that is Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake meets Nancy Farmer’s House of the Scorpion.
I thought I would love this more. As it was, I did like it, and there were parts that really drew me in, but overall I just didn't have that holycrapthisisawesome moment I did in Salvage. Which makes me kinda sad. But there's still some awesome bits:
- AgraCorp is SO COOL. In a totalitarian, never wanting to get involved with them kinda way. They are such a compelling, dynamic threat, and I wanted to delve deeper into their gritty agriculture, army world. Which was why I was a bit frustrated to detour into the shiny, glitzy bits of the world.
- I liked the main characters, their utter differences in upbringing and personality.
- No romance, if you're into that thing!!!
- There's so much to this world that works, from the soldiers to the farming to the blight which was quite frankly horrifying (but I REALLY REALLY wish we'd seen more of that in the second half because it just kinda ... vanished.)
- There's so many secrets in this, especially revolving around Tempest's family, and those actually managed to shock me. I'd JUST started to suspect when the huge plot twist was thrown down but I only saw a tiny part of it coming not the Giant Shock. This worked so well.
-The first half was SO GOOD, the second half ... meh. I lost a bit of interest, to be honest, and there's so many bits of the world I wanted to explore that I was disappointed when the book just didn't go there
-I wanted a big showdown with AgraCorp in the end, that final battle between the old Tempest and the new, but instead it was a fight with a gang which ... eh, it was cool but I still wanted her to fight AgraCorp.
Overall: a really unique, interesting take on the future.
Characters ★★★☆☆
Setting/world ★★★★☆
Writing ★★★☆☆
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