Book Description:
(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 of their breeding rights to the highest bidder.
In a world where females are scarce and hunted, then bought and sold at a market for their breeding rights, 15-year-old Aya has learned how to hide. With a ragtag buncho 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.
My Rating: 3 stars
Thoughts:
“The Glass Arrow” was fairly good, if a little slow at times. I liked Aya. She was very different from many other dystopian heroines, and was able to hold her own. Most heroines are really played up, and yet when the time comes for kickassery, they fall short and prove not to be badassses after all. I didn’t find that with Aya, and it was refreshing.
The love-interest is named Kiran. What I liked about this book is that romance is not a main part in it, except maybe in the last quarter or so. Aya’s relationship with Kiran is about their connection to each other, and it is a connection that goes way beyond the cliche “omg he’s gorgeous, let’s make out even though we barely know each other and we have more important things to worry about then how fast we can take our clothes off”. Again, very refreshing.
Kiran doesn’t speak for the first half of the book, which sort of annnoyed me at first, because there would be pages and pages where Aya would just keep talking and talking, and there would be no reply from Kiran and it just felt like there was too much time spent having Aya talk to herself. It bothered me, but I got used to it eventually.
The one thing that I did like about the book was that the setup was very medieval-y. It was interesting, and different from other dystopian worlds.
I also LOVED Brax, Aya’s dog/wolf companion. I will admit that I did shed a few tears when Brax’s soul moved on.
Overall, “The Glass Arrow” was an interesting read. I read it on my Kobo, and if I remember correctly, it took me about two or three days to get from start-to-finish. Which is not bad, since this book is packed with lots of interesting things. At first, I was surprised that there was not a sequel, but it made sense as the book is SOO long. The book left off at a decent place. I would kind of like to know what happens to Aya and Kiran later (Perhaps an epilogue novella will be written?) but the ending was alright and didn’t leave me with major questions. Everything was mostly resolved at least, which was good. So many books without sequels just end with huge questions and no resolve. Another refreshing thing about The Glass Arrow.
Anyway, it was interesting and a nice change from the usual dystopia.
