Books reviewed prior on this site prior to March 2019 were provided to me, at no charge, by the publisher, or by the author, in exchange for an honest review. I have received no further compensation for these reviews. Reviews beginning March 2019 come from a variety of sources: advanced copies, library loans, and my own purchases. All reviews are my honest opinions.

January 21, 2016

Ferocity {Preston and Kayla Shown Dean}

Ferocity {Preston and Kayla Shown Dean}
"When it started, it was the size of a dot, but it dissolved like a drop of ink into a glass of water. The clear became clouded, and that what was once light now faded into dark. It spread like a disease affecting all mankind, this evil."

He swore he'd never go back
He knew it wasn't safe.
He vowed to live out his life on an island of paradise.
But some promises aren't ours to keep...

After a world-wide societal fallout, Judson, Rune, and Abel, three siblings, have grown up isolated on a Caribbean island, protected and cared for by their father. But when he realizes that the island's food sources are running gravely low, he's forced into making a decision he thought he'd never make: to return with his family to the dangerous mainland. However, the siblings don't exactly agree with their father's decision. And these three can fight--fight with a volatile sibling ferocity.

The first of The Ferocity Series, Ferocity is an action-packed young adult dystopian that explores familial relationships in the midst of widespread chaos and the limitations of our own fears.

My Thoughts:
This book opens in the year 2019, and really has two stories within the book. I actually thought that these two stories were happening at the same time and would eventually intersect, but I was wrong. As we learn in the end, the two stories are actually 20 years apart. And yes, they do eventually intersect, just not in the way I thought they were heading.

The first story is that of siblings Judson, Rune, and Abel, and their father on an island. They are living on the island as an escape from the harshness of the real world. Their father has determined they need to return to the mainland, and starts making preparations to do so. They thought of returning to the mainland seems to cause a separation among the siblings that cannot be mended.

The story of the siblings on the mainland didn’t do much for me. I felt that too much effort was made to make it futuristic that it sometimes made it difficult to follow along. I felt some of the actions of the characters was unrealistic, and I felt lost most of the time. There just didn’t seem to be a sense of flow to the story and it fell flat for me.

However, the second story in the book was taking place in the mainland. Mobile, Alabama is in despair. Christopher has landed on the mainland in hopes of finding his family but instead meets a lovely girl. The two of them set out to try to save themselves from the looters and murders that have taken over the town. Their story is one of suspense that actually kept me on the edge of my seat. I was rooting for them to make it out alive, but their actions seemed to sometimes make me think they wanted to be killed. We are led to believe they eventually made it out of Mobile by way of a tattered sailboat.

This book is not considered Christian Fiction, but does tend to have a Christian theme thorough much of the story. It is classified as young adult dystopia.