Title: The Purple Saxifrage
Author: Sieana Makeshift
Genre: Young Adult
Published: January 23rd 2017
Published: January 23rd 2017
Page count: 230 pages
Format: Paperback
Source: From author in exchange of an honest review
Book Summary:
Ariel lives in a high-tech city buried deep underground. They have long forgotten about the world outside. She is inadvertently pulled into a radical anarchist movement. Who can she trust when the one she loves betrays her? Where can she turn when her life is just 1s and 0s that can easily be hacked?Talia lives a nomadic lifestyle in the dangerously unpredictable wilderness above ground. But she is not at all ready to be married off. Can she survive alone?
Their futures are unknowingly intertwined.
*The Chef’s Review*
Actual rating: 3.5/5 stars
The Purple Saxifrage is an intriguing dystopian young adult book. It was a very quick read which left me wishing for more.
What I liked:
The plot of this book is interesting. It talks about the way humans were forced to live in order to survive the future and its limitations. Talia, one of the main characters of this book, lives on a kind of campground civilization. They move around a lot and the people divide their work with basic needs and also classify themselves with colors for the different tasks and fuctions they each do. Meanwhile Ariel, the other main character, lives underground in a city with all the technology the human civilization has created up to date.
I love the way the chapters kept changing back and forth between the two main characters. It felt like I was reading two very different stories and where fate brings those two together. Ariel and Talia live in very different realities without truly knowing that they exist and both of them have their doubts and question the society in which they live. That same uncertainty is what pushed them into taking alternative decisions to alter their lives.
What didn’t do it for me:
Even though I liked the plot and the characters, I felt that the story needed to have more details and explanations as to the hows and whys the society came to be the way it is. I needed to know more to truly understand each of the characters’ situation. It’s such a shame because it had some very interesting characters that the story introduced that gave color to the plot in a funny, sassy, and quirky way. Ahh! So much potential!
Final Verdict:
The Purple Saxifrage is an interesting read albeit a bit on the short side. I’m not sure if this is part of a series (this book ends well by closing a few of its major plot points) but there’s definitely a lot of room left to explore if it were to continue with a sequel. I’d be tempted to check it out if it did!
Happy reading! — The Chef
