“Arena one struck me as a combination of Lara
Croft, Blood Red Road and The Hunger Games; an interesting and chaotic mix. You’ll
find Action, loyalties, love and devastation. With so much on the line how do you
know what is really worth fighting for?”
Brooke is the daughter of a
marine. She’s a survivor. That’s the one good trait she inherited. She’s also
stubborn, like her mother. But that’s a problem...
Despite not having the most original of plots,
this novel made me think a lot more than other dystopians. It made me realise
how destructive we, as humans, truly are and how selfish I, as a person, really
am. I don’t think I would have the guts
nor determination to do what Brooke did. I can admit (and I am rather ashamed to do so)
that I would have given up and lost hope. I would have abandoned everyone...
This novel is rather descriptive in the travelling
aspect. It’s very specific. You never leave the character; you’re with her the
whole time as she narrowly misses colliding with a crumbling building and as
she turns a corner too sharply onto 59th street and then swerves on
a patch of ice outside an abandoned Apple store. I admit I did find this description
a little dry at times and often extremely repetitive but it helped you to put
yourself in Brooke’s shoes as her journey was not fun or exciting. It was not
short and sweet. It was long, tiring and tedious. It made you appreciate just how hard things were for her and again highlighted how selfish I am because I know for sure that I would not be willing to sacrifice myself as often as she was willing to.
The characters weren’t original but neither were
they cliché. They were their own people but if you want to know their personalities in a nutshell then here they are. Ben is “the boy with the bread” or in this case "deer". He is another “Peeta Mellark”.
Completely helpless but somehow manages to pull through. Then there’s Logan. He’s
a “Gale Hawthorn”. He’s strong and is a born fighter, just like Brooke. Brooke
is a combination between the fighter within us all, Saba (from Blood Red Road)
and I suppose she is like a “katniss Everdeen” as her sister is a strong-willed “Prim”.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book when I
was half way through reading it but after reading the last word I am definitely
craving more and can’t wait to see where this story is going to take us!
Morgan Rice has taken a running jump into the
dystopian world and I hope that this trilogy stays afloat!
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