Blood Red Road
Blood – Life and death; Blood relatives
Red – Danger
Road – Journeys
This is a gripping story about Saba on a dangerous journey in search of her brother. A journey which involves many life and death situations; the title sums it up well.
It is amazing to think that this is Moira Young’s first book and that she also won the 2011 Costa Children’s Book Prize. The author is a Canadian, but now lives in Bath, England and some of her landscape descriptions could well be the open spaces of Canada.
This is another book written as the writer speaks, so if you you’ve read The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness and this style didn’t bother you, then you will also enjoy this book. I must admit that I didn’t even notice that there were no speech marks around any of the conversations, and that I find this style of writing adds to the characterisation, and helps the reader get straight into the story.
For example:
I keep runnin after ’em.
I’ll find you! I scream.
They disappear into the red haze.
Lugh! I scream. Lugh! Come back!
My legs go out from unner me. I fall to my knees.
It wont take you long to read because you wont be able to put it down. There are nine sections but each one is broken down into many short sequences headed by a crow. The crow is a character in the book called Nero and “he does what he always does, which is perch on my shoulder an caw real loud, right in my ear, to tell me what he’s thinin.”
The writing is fast paced, there are a lot of surprises, it is a thriller and a love story.
If you need any further reason to check it out, let me just say that Ridley Scott‘s production company has bought up the film rights (although the project is only in the “in development” stage.) Ridley Scott is known for Blade Runner, Alien, and Black Hawk Down.
Enjoy this trailer…..
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