Blood Red Road product reviews

Blood Red Road is Moira Young's debut novel, and the 2011 winner of Britain's prestigious Costa Book Awards, in the children's section - though they should probably have a youth section for books like this.

The story follows the character Saba who is trying to find her brother, snatched from their home by unknown men on horseback. Saba's journey takes place in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world where cities are now concrete jungles and new predators roam the barren wastelands.

The language of the book makes it hard to initially get into, but once you realise that this is just setting the boundaries of this fictional world, it draws you into the story.

Saba's is a coming of age tale, where she has to discover her inner strength in a story that has subtle Hunger Games overtones. Once you get past the unique dialogue, and the first person style, the book cracks along at an enjoyable pace, and you'll find yourself immersed in this new world, meeting characters that you'll either fall in love with or despise.

Whilst this is teen fiction, it's still got enough depth for a more mature audience, though some of the themes should make you wary of giving it to too-younger children.

When I picked this up, the plot sounded like just the sort of thing that I really enjoy getting into, I was also looking forward to a good length book that I could fully sink my teeth into so to speak.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it past the first chapter as much as I tried, there was something in the style of writing that I really couldn't get into. I think it was because the dialogue is described rather than written as actual dialogue as is usual. For me this meant I couldn't get into the characters, I couldn't imagine them speaking and interacting like I would normally do. Somehow it made the action and story feel more distant rather than being able to lose myself in it.

I feel really bad having to mark a book down so much but sadly, just not my thing.