Author: Shannon Price | Published: November 5, 2019 by Tor Teen | Series: Standalone | Length: 304 pages | Genre: YA fiction/retelling | Source: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
10 Years. 3 Gangs. 1 Girl’s Epic Quest…Valerie Simons knows the city’s gang wars are dangerous—her own brother was killed by the Boars two years ago. But nothing will sway her from joining the elite and beautiful Herons to avenge his death—a death she feels responsible for.
But when Valerie is recruited by the mysterious Stags, their charismatic and volatile leader Jax promises to help her get revenge. Torn between old love and new loyalty, Valerie fights to stay alive as she races across the streets of San Francisco to finish the mission that got her into the gangs.
TRIGGER WARNING: Cutting
This book was marketed as a retelling of the Illiad, and I admit that I haven’t read the Illiad beforehand so I can’t really say if this book was a good retelling at that. However, I just felt like this story was lacking for me. I really wanted more out of this book than it gave me. By the time I finished this book I kept going back to the last few pages not believing that that was the end. It just seemed really short, and I wish it was a little longer.
This book did have some interesting gang dynamics, but they also were a little hard to understand. I didn’t know why the gangs had to take teens when they turn eighteen. Plus the gang’s history wasn’t really deep rooted at all; it was all fairly new and recent. It definitely wasn’t a long-standing tradition that I had been expecting.
There also really wasn’t much character development or growth. due to this I felt like I just didn’t connect with the characters as much as I normally would’ve. I feel really bad in saying this but the characters were regrettably forgettable.
The romance in this book seemed pretty lackluster. And at times the love interest was a little unstable. It almost would’ve been better if there was either more romance or none at all.
This book did have a lot to do with grief and loss with a bit of vengeance thrown in as well. The main character has to deal with a lot of past trauma, and we see how that affects her decisions later on.
The author did a fairly good job for a debut novel, and I’ll definitely be picking up their next book and seeing how they’ve grown as a writer.
I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads.
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