Rebel Heart

Starred review from December 3, 2012
In Young's second Dust Lands book, she returns to the gritty world of Blood Red Road and to the gruff, colloquial voice of Saba, a fierce girl living in a bleak, post-apocalyptic future that incorporates elements of the fantasy and western genres. Saba is haunted by the deaths on her shoulders (particularly that of her friend Epona), and she believes she might be going insane. Her rescued twin brother, Lugh, also bears emotional scars from his time in captivity, and the siblings often battle each other as they quest to reach an oasis called the Big Water. Meanwhile, Saba's new love, Jack, discovers that the evil slavers known as the Tonton are rising again, led by someone called the Pathfinder. Young is even more ambitious this time out, interweaving multiple plot threads and narrative voices, and while her stylistic choices do not always result in easy reading (the same stream-of-consciousness style that makes Saba's voice so effective can be awkward when describing Jack's actions in the third person), her immersive storytelling will lure readers deeper into this dangerous, starkly lovely terrain. Ages 14âup. Agent: Gillie Russell, Aitken Alexander.

At the end of BLOOD RED ROAD, Saba rescues her brother, kills a friend out of mercy, and parts ways with her heart's desire, Jack. All of these haunt her in this dystopian sequel--plus she has a price on her head. Narrator Heather Lind continues to maintain suspense as Saba struggles externally with her ungrateful twin and internally with her nightmares and self-doubt. A new character adds comic relief, and Lind makes use of her wide vocal range to fully flesh out the supporting cast. In print this middle book is a long, dusty journey filled with disparate and disagreeable villains. Lind adds a crackling energy like the static charge of an approaching storm to keep the action--and the listening--unstoppable. M.M.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine