Review : The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons

Summary (from Goodreads)

Title : The Glass Arrow
Author : Kristen Simmons
Publication Date : February 10th 2015
Publisher : Tor Teen
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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 off breeding rights to the highest bidder.

In a world where females are scarce and are hunted, then bought and sold at market for their breeding rights, 15-year old Aya has learned how to hide. With a ragtag bunch 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.

Personal Thoughts

Kristen Simmons has fast become one of my favorite authors. I was ecstatic to find out that she was releasing a new book this year and even more excited that it was a dystopian because she excels at writing those. With The Glass Arrow, Kristen Simmons, once again proved why she is an auto-buy author for me. Intense, action-packed and emotionally draining, The Glass Arrow is Kristen's strongest book yet.

In any book, it's the characters that really make the story. The Glass Arrow featured one of my favorite heroines ; a badass and a definite role model. Aya may be young at 15, but she had seen a lot. Despite all the suffering that she had to endure, she remained strong throughout the entire book. I love that she was resilient, and was never afraid to rise up again even though she fell hard quite a bit. Now, that's an admirable quality in a YA heroine. For me, her ability to continue fighting for her loved ones and for her dignity was made her such a beautiful character. Aya wasn't just tough though. She had many different layers of complexities to her character. We got to see her sweeter and more gentle side when she lovingly thought about her family, which made her even more endearing to me. Kristen Simmons always manages to write these fierce characters with layers and layers of depth, that you actually want to root for. Her secondary characters are also always well fleshed-out. My favorite side character was a wolf that Aya adopts, Brax. I don't know how she did it, but that little fellow had so much personality and made me fall hard in love with him. Of course, I was also tearing up whenever he would try to save Aya. The Glass Arrow also had a fantastic love interest. Kiran was everything that I look for in a YA book boyfriend, kind, self-less and just plain loveable. And guess what? He managed to make me fall in love with him without uttering a word. Kiran formed part of a population known as Drivers, who were mute. Kristen didn't need to make use of words to make me fall for this character of hers, just his actions were sufficient.

You may think that you're over dystopia because every other book sounds the same these days, but trust me when I say that you want this book. It's nothing like the typical dystopia. There's no rebellion against tyrannical leaders. The Glass Arrow is just the story of a girl fighting to escape and wanting to get back with her family. The plot was action-packed and had my heart racing non-stop. The notion of the constant danger that Aya was in would give me the shivers. The world building in The Glass Arrow was also just outstanding. Kristen Simmons created a scary society in an intelligent, thoughtful and believable way. It's a world where women are auctioned off to breed boys. It's utterly frightening how complacent some of the girls are, but it's also very realistic, in my opinion. With The Glass Arrow, the author tackled many themes relating to feminism and she does a fantastic job at it. Perhaps, my favorite part of The Glass Arrow besides the characters has to be the romance. What a genuinely touching relationship Aya and Kiran had! It started off with a friendship which eventually blossomed into more. I loved every minute of this slow and tender romance and I shipped these two pretty hard. YA needs more romances that are as healthy as the one that Aya and Kiran had. They were supportive of each other, but they allow each other to flourish as individuals as well. It was very beautifully done.

You may be sick of YA dystopia books, but if you miss out on The Glass Arrow, you're going to miss out an exceptional book, with courageous characters, fantastic storytelling and a world that will leave you breathless. Buy this book, everyone!


Rating

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 5/5
Characters : 4/5
Writing : 5/5

Thank you to Tor Teen for the ARC of The Glass Arrow.