“Savage and raw, Jennifer Wilson pulls no punches in this blood tingling dystopian.” Kimberly Derting, award-winning author of The Pledge Trilogy Worlds collide in debut author Jennifer Wilson’s graphic dystopian series where Divergent meets Mad Max. Since witnessing her parents’ murders at the age of eleven, Phoenix’s only purpose in life has been to uphold her mother’s dying words – to be … to be strong and survive. But surviving outside of The Walls – outside of The Sanctuary – is more like a drawn-out death sentence. A cruel and ruthless city, Tartarus is run by the Tribes whose motto is simple, “Join or die.”
Refusing to join and determined to live, Phoenix fights to survive in this savage world.
But who can she trust, when no one can be trusted? Not even herself…
The first of a trilogy, New World Rising is an epic tale of survival, instinct, trauma, and the extraordinary power of human connection.
“An unstoppable freight train of guts, glory… and adventure!” – Laura L Fox, author of Initiate
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Basically I saw this as Divergent, only better. Why? Because the factions made sense. The rage against the system made sense. It’s 100% a YA sci-fi dystopia trope soup, but if you’re going to do them you might as well do them as right as this first in series does. I wavered between a 4 and a 5 star rating but rounded up because I had to check that this was an indie published book. It’s very polished in writing style and plot. I got chills from the first chapter alone.
It’s the story of a girl called Phoenix, orphaned and surviving the harsh reality of a broken world. When a terrible cataclysm occurred long ago, people built a place known as The Sanctuary to house the survivors in a utopian dream. But the dream’s not for everyone, and some are forced to live outside the walls in the ruins of the old world known as Tartarus. It’s a place carved up by gang allegiances, and everyone’s out for themselves. Phoenix is a rogue without a gang, making her way by being smart and stealing from the gangs responsible for her parents’ deaths. In a fit of altruism, she attempts to save a young girl from a group of Ravagers (does what it says on the tin), and ends up being captured herself. Not by the Ravagers, but by… Someone else. They know about her. They know about the cruel reality of the “utopian” Sanctuary. And they need her help in order to do something about it. Because the only way to create a new world is to destroy what’s left of the old.
This is basically everything you could wish for from a Young Adult dystopia: gang wars, sneaking, fighting, secret societies, factions, rebellion, romance, and a tough heroine who only has a tiny case of TSTLitis. Phoenix does do some stupid things, but to be fair most of them could be believable in context. Her relationships with other characters all made sense ((view spoiler)), and while I didn’t love anyone in particular I felt invested enough in each of them to care.
On occasion characters could lapse into oddly formal dialogue that didn’t seem overly natural to their modern dialect (would not instead of wouldn’t, that sort of thing), but it’s a minor quibble.
The romance is that obvious kind of thing that usually happens in YA, but not overpowering – she doesn’t sniff him until 56% and only does it once (you know it’s serious when they “scent” each other). She does make note of his arm muscle groups a lot though. The only thing that bugged me was the close adhesion to the “they get together but must instantly have an argument because TENSION” trope.
I don’t want to give too much away with the plot, but suffice to say there’s action and danger aplenty. The mysterious nature of The Sanctuary is actually enough to draw you in without feeling too nebulous. We learn things at the same pace as Phoenix without feeling left out of the loop. The factions are really interesting, even if we don’t see too much of them. There are some amazing illustrated details at the beginning of the book that sets the scene almost as well as the writing.
TL;DR: I loved feeling like I was reading a YA novel that was both familiar and new. It’s intriguing and the cliffhanger ending, while a tad cruel, ends this first part on a note of adrenaline that makes me want to reach for book 2 straight away.
so bad I didn’t finish it
Good book. Nice plot. Everything seemed to flow very fast. I was Not happy with the sudden cliffhanger. I tend to prefer stand alone books.
Keep me reading and needing to buy book #2. Strong lead character development learning all sides of her.
Love love love!!!!
Wished it had a more complete inding
Realistic possible situations if the world was in chaos. Heroine is quick, intelligent and independent honing skills she needs to survive. I enjoyed this dystopian fiction.
Couldn’t put it down!
It was exciting with a different twist where the young lady turns out to be the granddaughter of the head of the whole city. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
A very good read. Could not put it down
The tribes made this world setting interesting. I enjoyed the many facets of each character. I did race through reading it and would read the next one is this series.