Picture drawn by Maggie Stiefvater, 2009. Header made by S.F. Robertson, 2010.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Grace by Elizabeth Scott


Grace by Elizabeth Scott
"Grace was raised to be an Angel, a herald of death by suicide bomb. But she refuses to die for the cause, and now Grace is on the run, daring to dream of freedom. In search of a border she may never reach, she travels among malevolent soldiers on a decrepit train crawling through the desert. Accompanied by the mysterious Kerr, Grace struggles to be invisible, but the fear of discovery looms large as she recalls the history and events that delivered her uncertain fate."- summary from Amazon

I was really excited to read this book because a) It's Elizabeth Scott and she's awesome and b) because it sounded like a really powerful read and very different from what she's done before. The writing style is similar in vein to Living Dead Girl- very sparse and tight prose as well as very depressing and hard to read.

It's a short book and I'm glad for that. Like Living Dead Girl (sorry that I keep drawing comparisons but the reactions for me with both are too similar), it's a tough read to swallow and, for once, I was grateful to only be reading it during breaks at work. Reading it for 15 or 30 minutes at a time was enough for me.

Grace's journey is one wrought with fear, which brings a huge amount of suspense for the reader. It's a book that's hard to write a review for because of how it affects you as a reader. It's not a story that you can squee over (and if you did, I would be very worried), but rather just a story that needs to be told and read. It's the kind of story that I would like to think would inspire change for the better.

My review sucks, so here's a link to a better review- Not Enough Bookshelves (from back in June)

FTC: Received ARC at BEA. Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.

5 comments:

  1. I read this one and I agree with your opinions. It's definitely not light or easy. I haven't read anything by Scott before now but I may read more by her.

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  2. Oh, wow, Living Dead Girl was...such an easy read, but so hard to swallow. I'm really excited to read the book, though.

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  3. Ooh, you make me glad I didn't try to read this while I was in D.C. I still have my ARC from ALA and I definitely plan on reading it soon. Maybe I'll read another, lighter book at the same time!

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  4. I really liked your review and feel like I understand more about what type of book this is. Thanks for the scoop!

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  5. I love how versatile Elizabeth Scott is. I've been in a not-good mood the last week so I guess now's the time to read this one. Great review as always James. ^.^

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