A review by fatimareadsbooks
Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman
4.0
**I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley via the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**
I gotta admit, when I first picked up Vengeance Road, I was pretty skeptical. I'm not a fan of Western stories but I just had to see what all this hype surrounding it was about. I dove in expecting some YA love story sprinkled with light, fluffy Western elements, but boy was I wrong! Vengeance Road is a gritty, action-packed story that'll keep you turning it's pages until the very end. It is the story of a young girl's unforgiving quest for vengeance.
Kate Thompson, A.K.A. Nate Thompson, comes home one day to find that her father had been hanged and the house burned down by a gang of notorious cowboys called the Rose Riders. She buries her father, cries, counts to ten, then wipes away her tears before saddling up and arming herself to go on this vengeance road - as a boy. However, along the way, she makes some unexpected 'allies', uncovers secrets about her father, and gets swept up in an intense and possibly treacherous quest for gold.
The storytelling here was fantastic, although - at first - I did get thrown off a bit by the Western dialect. Gradually, I eased into it and reading the story became a breeze!
Another thing I loved about this story, was Kate. Her lust for revenge felt very real, unlike other YA heroines who usually lost track of what they were doing as soon as a male came strollin' in. She felt neither guilt nor remorse for murdering her father's killers; she was tough and I liked it. And in the instances when Kate actually cried? Give her 10 seconds and you'll find her wiping her tears and already scheming her enemy's downfall.
Everything about the romance in this story was just perfect - especially it's pacing. It crept in slowly, weaving itself into the story by building their relationship from witty banter to something else. All without detracting anything from the story. It was gradual, not too fast and not too slow, which was ideal.
If you like a vicious Western story filled with conflict, then Vengeance Road is the one for you. It's very unique and it's bound to make you snort once or twice somewhere along the way.
I gotta admit, when I first picked up Vengeance Road, I was pretty skeptical. I'm not a fan of Western stories but I just had to see what all this hype surrounding it was about. I dove in expecting some YA love story sprinkled with light, fluffy Western elements, but boy was I wrong! Vengeance Road is a gritty, action-packed story that'll keep you turning it's pages until the very end. It is the story of a young girl's unforgiving quest for vengeance.
Kate Thompson, A.K.A. Nate Thompson, comes home one day to find that her father had been hanged and the house burned down by a gang of notorious cowboys called the Rose Riders. She buries her father, cries, counts to ten, then wipes away her tears before saddling up and arming herself to go on this vengeance road - as a boy. However, along the way, she makes some unexpected 'allies', uncovers secrets about her father, and gets swept up in an intense and possibly treacherous quest for gold.
The storytelling here was fantastic, although - at first - I did get thrown off a bit by the Western dialect. Gradually, I eased into it and reading the story became a breeze!
Another thing I loved about this story, was Kate. Her lust for revenge felt very real, unlike other YA heroines who usually lost track of what they were doing as soon as a male came strollin' in. She felt neither guilt nor remorse for murdering her father's killers; she was tough and I liked it. And in the instances when Kate actually cried? Give her 10 seconds and you'll find her wiping her tears and already scheming her enemy's downfall.
Everything about the romance in this story was just perfect - especially it's pacing. It crept in slowly, weaving itself into the story by building their relationship from witty banter to something else. All without detracting anything from the story. It was gradual, not too fast and not too slow, which was ideal.
If you like a vicious Western story filled with conflict, then Vengeance Road is the one for you. It's very unique and it's bound to make you snort once or twice somewhere along the way.