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cocoafiend's review
5.0
This one was great! Hope it becomes the next big thing. Super fun, unique setting. Recommend to adventure and dystopia lovers.
alexctelander's review against another edition
5.0
Welcome to the quaint little town of Las Anclas, located on the edge of nowhere. It’s a frontier town with high surrounding walls and guards constantly watching from above. Interestingly, those guards are all ages from teenagers to adults, and they all look like they know how to handle those weapons they’re carrying.
In this harsh world, places like Las Anclas are necessary refuges. You’re either a normal human or a mutant who is “Changed,” giving you special powers and abilities. There are those who will respect you for being different and others who will despise you, even inside those safe town walls, so watch your back.
Ross Juarez has just escaped death from a bounty hunger and the lethally dangerous crystalline trees and has made it to Las Anclas, seeking refuge. There he will make friends, but also enemies. He is also in possession of a special ancient book written in a language he can’t read.
Stranger is one of the few post-apocalyptic young adult books to earn its place next to Hunger Games. The diversity of the cast make this made-up world a completely believable one. The science fiction elements leave you shivering with fright, but also wanting to understand more. By the end of the book, you’ll be looking for the sequel; fortunately there is one.
Originally written on March 19, 2015 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out the BookBanter site.
In this harsh world, places like Las Anclas are necessary refuges. You’re either a normal human or a mutant who is “Changed,” giving you special powers and abilities. There are those who will respect you for being different and others who will despise you, even inside those safe town walls, so watch your back.
Ross Juarez has just escaped death from a bounty hunger and the lethally dangerous crystalline trees and has made it to Las Anclas, seeking refuge. There he will make friends, but also enemies. He is also in possession of a special ancient book written in a language he can’t read.
Stranger is one of the few post-apocalyptic young adult books to earn its place next to Hunger Games. The diversity of the cast make this made-up world a completely believable one. The science fiction elements leave you shivering with fright, but also wanting to understand more. By the end of the book, you’ll be looking for the sequel; fortunately there is one.
Originally written on March 19, 2015 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out the BookBanter site.
eloquents's review
5.0
Wonderful world-building and a great cast of prominent minority characters who were treated sensitively and with grace.
seachelles7's review
4.0
Fantastic world building and post-apocalyptic dystopian goodness without being bogged down by info-dumps or environmental activist messages.
I really loved Ross, Mia and Yuki. I loved the tension between the Norms and the Changed and the variety of the changed. I loved that characters were gay and it was just another aspect, not a lesson or a shock or an issue, love was just love.
Reads well as a stand alone but I'm so happy there will be a sequel.
I really loved Ross, Mia and Yuki. I loved the tension between the Norms and the Changed and the variety of the changed. I loved that characters were gay and it was just another aspect, not a lesson or a shock or an issue, love was just love.
Reads well as a stand alone but I'm so happy there will be a sequel.
coolcurrybooks's review
3.0
Stranger is a YA novel set in a post-apocalyptic world where some people have gained what are essentially super powers. The story centers around the town of Las Anclas, where “Norms” and “Changed” live side by side, even if there’s often distrust and prejudice between the two groups. The balance in the town is shaken when a teenage prospector, Ross Juarez, shows up at the gates.
Stranger is told through five teenage POV characters. There’s Ross, Mia, Jennie, Yuki, and Felicite. Ross has been on his own his entire life and is only starting to learn how to trust. Mia’s the town’s mechanic, and Jennie’s her friend, a strong willed girl who’s both a ranger in training and an interim schoolteacher. Yuki’s a prince who washed up at Las Anclas years ago but wants to venture out to see the world. Felicite’s the mayor’s daughter, self serving and manipulating.
Going into Stranger, I was wary of the number of POV chapters. However, I think it worked. By switching between so many different characters, Stranger became more about the town itself and the community created there than any one person. I really liked this focus on community. Las Anclas might have its problems, but it is by and large a good place to live. This book isn’t about a group of teenagers fighting the evil government. It’s about a community trying to work together and what it means to be a part of that community.
Also note while is the remarkable diversity of characters. None of our POV characters are white, and racism (or sexism or homophobia) don’t seem to be major forces in Las Anclas. There’s also a number of characters who’d fall under the LGBTQ umbrella, such as Yuki, who has a male love interest. Stranger is also one of the only YA books I’ve seen that proposes polyamory as the solution to a love triangle. However, I do have some problems with the treatment of Mia’s sexual orientation.
At the beginning of the book, it really looks like Mia’s asexual and maybe aromantic. She doesn’t get sex, romance, or those passionate feelings everyone keeps talking about. She went on a date only once, because she didn’t want to have turned eighteen without ever having been on a date. She worried about the fact that she was different from everyone else and wondered if there was something wrong with her or if she was “broken.” Over the past year or so, I’ve realized that I was asexual and I could relate to a lot of what was going on with Mia. However, despite her depiction at the beginning of the book, Mia turns out not to be either asexual or aromantic. She starts having romantic feelings for a male character (but could still be asexual) when there’s this scene. It’s the middle of a thunderstorm and she sees her love interest in soaking wet clothes and “suddenly understands” that passion everyone else talks about. It’s possible that she’s demisexual, though the book never uses any sort of labels for its LGBTQ characters and I haven’t found any sort of statement from the authors about Mia’s sexual orientation. However, even if Mia is demisexual, I’m really disappointed and upset about how the book handled her, in a large part because of how her worries about “broken” are fixed by her experiencing sexual attraction. What does this say about people who are asexual? I doubt the authors meant to imply anything, but it’s still bothered me. I think it would have helped if the beginning “broken” narrative had been different, if it used the words, or if it had a character who was asexual among the supporting cast.
All that aside, my main problems with the book steam from lackluster pacing. It starts off fast, with Ross being chased through the desert. Then the action and tension abruptly fall off and the plot slows down. Things pick back up towards the end, but the climax didn’t really have enough build up. I think some of the book’s issues here are that it may be a primarily character focused novel in an action focused genre.
One of my favorite aspects of the book is the world building. There’s a sort of Western feel to the setting. There’s prospectors and sheriffs and many of the other familiar Western tropes, but there’s also squirrels with teleportation abilities and carnivorous trees made of glass. There’s so much imagination, and I loved the attention paid to little details.
I’m not sure if I’ll read the sequel to Stranger. Some of my uncertainty may be all the feelings I have surrounding the Mia situation, but the pacing problems also play a part. There are things that interested me about the book, but I haven’t decided yet if it’s worth expending time on the sequel.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
Stranger is told through five teenage POV characters. There’s Ross, Mia, Jennie, Yuki, and Felicite. Ross has been on his own his entire life and is only starting to learn how to trust. Mia’s the town’s mechanic, and Jennie’s her friend, a strong willed girl who’s both a ranger in training and an interim schoolteacher. Yuki’s a prince who washed up at Las Anclas years ago but wants to venture out to see the world. Felicite’s the mayor’s daughter, self serving and manipulating.
Going into Stranger, I was wary of the number of POV chapters. However, I think it worked. By switching between so many different characters, Stranger became more about the town itself and the community created there than any one person. I really liked this focus on community. Las Anclas might have its problems, but it is by and large a good place to live. This book isn’t about a group of teenagers fighting the evil government. It’s about a community trying to work together and what it means to be a part of that community.
Also note while is the remarkable diversity of characters. None of our POV characters are white, and racism (or sexism or homophobia) don’t seem to be major forces in Las Anclas. There’s also a number of characters who’d fall under the LGBTQ umbrella, such as Yuki, who has a male love interest. Stranger is also one of the only YA books I’ve seen that proposes polyamory as the solution to a love triangle. However, I do have some problems with the treatment of Mia’s sexual orientation.
At the beginning of the book, it really looks like Mia’s asexual and maybe aromantic. She doesn’t get sex, romance, or those passionate feelings everyone keeps talking about. She went on a date only once, because she didn’t want to have turned eighteen without ever having been on a date. She worried about the fact that she was different from everyone else and wondered if there was something wrong with her or if she was “broken.” Over the past year or so, I’ve realized that I was asexual and I could relate to a lot of what was going on with Mia. However, despite her depiction at the beginning of the book, Mia turns out not to be either asexual or aromantic. She starts having romantic feelings for a male character (but could still be asexual) when there’s this scene. It’s the middle of a thunderstorm and she sees her love interest in soaking wet clothes and “suddenly understands” that passion everyone else talks about. It’s possible that she’s demisexual, though the book never uses any sort of labels for its LGBTQ characters and I haven’t found any sort of statement from the authors about Mia’s sexual orientation. However, even if Mia is demisexual, I’m really disappointed and upset about how the book handled her, in a large part because of how her worries about “broken” are fixed by her experiencing sexual attraction. What does this say about people who are asexual? I doubt the authors meant to imply anything, but it’s still bothered me. I think it would have helped if the beginning “broken” narrative had been different, if it used the words, or if it had a character who was asexual among the supporting cast.
All that aside, my main problems with the book steam from lackluster pacing. It starts off fast, with Ross being chased through the desert. Then the action and tension abruptly fall off and the plot slows down. Things pick back up towards the end, but the climax didn’t really have enough build up. I think some of the book’s issues here are that it may be a primarily character focused novel in an action focused genre.
One of my favorite aspects of the book is the world building. There’s a sort of Western feel to the setting. There’s prospectors and sheriffs and many of the other familiar Western tropes, but there’s also squirrels with teleportation abilities and carnivorous trees made of glass. There’s so much imagination, and I loved the attention paid to little details.
I’m not sure if I’ll read the sequel to Stranger. Some of my uncertainty may be all the feelings I have surrounding the Mia situation, but the pacing problems also play a part. There are things that interested me about the book, but I haven’t decided yet if it’s worth expending time on the sequel.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
illuminated_frogs's review against another edition
2.0
The first problem I had with this book is that there were too many characters. I don't mean there were too many POVs; I didn't have trouble with the main characters so much as all the side characters. By the end of the book there were still some characters I felt hazy about.
The other problem I had was that nothing much happens for most of the book, and there isn't nearly enough character development to make up for it. The best bit about this book was definitely the world building: there were some cool and imaginative plants and animals (I liked the chiming trees!)
While there was some nice diversity (casual gay/bi characters, lots of POC, a polyamorous relationship) I wasn't a fan of Mia's storyline. She spends quite a bit of time at the start of the book worrying about how she's never fallen in love or had a crush and doesn't understand any of it. She seems extremely aroace, but then she falls in love and this is never mentioned again. My issue with the book isn't that she fell in love, as she could easily be demi (as said on the aro and ace database) but that the book doesn't make much effort to combat the idea that if you can't fall in love there's something wrong with you. Mia's storyline is basically 'she worries about not being able to fall in love but then she does and doesn't have to worry about this' instead of 'Mia worries about not being able to fall in love, realises that's okay, but happens to fall in love anyway' which I would have enjoyed a lot more.
The other problem I had was that nothing much happens for most of the book, and there isn't nearly enough character development to make up for it. The best bit about this book was definitely the world building: there were some cool and imaginative plants and animals (I liked the chiming trees!)
While there was some nice diversity (casual gay/bi characters, lots of POC, a polyamorous relationship) I wasn't a fan of Mia's storyline. She spends quite a bit of time at the start of the book worrying about how she's never fallen in love or had a crush and doesn't understand any of it. She seems extremely aroace, but then she falls in love and this is never mentioned again. My issue with the book isn't that she fell in love, as she could easily be demi (as said on the aro and ace database) but that the book doesn't make much effort to combat the idea that if you can't fall in love there's something wrong with you. Mia's storyline is basically 'she worries about not being able to fall in love but then she does and doesn't have to worry about this' instead of 'Mia worries about not being able to fall in love, realises that's okay, but happens to fall in love anyway' which I would have enjoyed a lot more.
bill_muganda's review against another edition
D.N.F. at 46%
I feel really bad for not connecting with this book, before reading I was actually really excited because my young adult streak hasn't been at it's best...
I find it very sad when you go into a book you were expecting to love but ended up disappointing you... It's like online dating, all the qualities are so good but after meeting them in person you're like...
I enjoyed the first 100 pages but what the author failed to do was balance out the world building and the character developing. I love books with multiple perspectives but it went south for me with this book. The world building was what got me angry... like the author just shoved me and expected me to figure it out?
I wanted descriptions and hard prose but I couldn't even picture the characters. The only positive outcome from the book was the diversity :) literally 3/4 main POVs were people of colour and the gender spectrum was broaden, the LGBTQIA theme presented was really cool. It was a colourful book but the execution just didn't do for me :)
I recommend it for the diversity especially in a YA novel, if the story sounds cool then try it :)
Thanks for reading.
Kenyan Library Blog
I feel really bad for not connecting with this book, before reading I was actually really excited because my young adult streak hasn't been at it's best...
I find it very sad when you go into a book you were expecting to love but ended up disappointing you... It's like online dating, all the qualities are so good but after meeting them in person you're like...
I enjoyed the first 100 pages but what the author failed to do was balance out the world building and the character developing. I love books with multiple perspectives but it went south for me with this book. The world building was what got me angry... like the author just shoved me and expected me to figure it out?
I wanted descriptions and hard prose but I couldn't even picture the characters. The only positive outcome from the book was the diversity :) literally 3/4 main POVs were people of colour and the gender spectrum was broaden, the LGBTQIA theme presented was really cool. It was a colourful book but the execution just didn't do for me :)
I recommend it for the diversity especially in a YA novel, if the story sounds cool then try it :)
Thanks for reading.
Kenyan Library Blog
tora76's review against another edition
5.0
Post-apocalyptic stories are probably my top favorite genre, and having it be set in Los Angeles? I really didn't need any more than that to want to give it a try. XD
I loved that we were just dropped right into the world with no exposition; instead all the little details about this world are revealed organically throughout the story. I really dislike exposition and am easily bored by long paragraphs of description, so this is my kind of writing.
The story is told through multiple POVs, changing from chapter to chapter, with the name of the POV character noted at the beginning of each chapter. I think there were about five POV characters, Ross, Yuki, Mia, Jennie, and Felicité, all of whom I grew to like by the end of the book, even those like Yuki and Felicité, who annoyed me at first. (I actually ended up liking Felicité the most, as obnoxious as she is. I'm really curious where her plotline will go in the next book.) I also liked a lot of the more minor characters, especially Mia's dad, the sheriff, and the bounty hunter.
I'm definitely looking forward to reading the sequel (and I hope the third book isn't too long in coming).
I loved that we were just dropped right into the world with no exposition; instead all the little details about this world are revealed organically throughout the story. I really dislike exposition and am easily bored by long paragraphs of description, so this is my kind of writing.
The story is told through multiple POVs, changing from chapter to chapter, with the name of the POV character noted at the beginning of each chapter. I think there were about five POV characters, Ross, Yuki, Mia, Jennie, and Felicité, all of whom I grew to like by the end of the book, even those like Yuki and Felicité, who annoyed me at first. (I actually ended up liking Felicité the most, as obnoxious as she is. I'm really curious where her plotline will go in the next book.) I also liked a lot of the more minor characters, especially Mia's dad, the sheriff, and the bounty hunter.
I'm definitely looking forward to reading the sequel (and I hope the third book isn't too long in coming).
clarag's review against another edition
4.0
Great book! If you enjoy westerns, this book would fill it. It takes place way in the future after some sort of catastrophe that knocked out all electricity and caused most plants, animals and even people to mutate. I loved this book, and though I normally don't enjoy trilogies, look forward to future installments. I liked all five characters the story follows, and would recommend anyone to read it!