You have three minutes to save your life . . .THREE MINUTESYou wake up alone in a horrible land. A horn sounds. The Call has begun.TWO MINUTESThe Sidhe are close. They’re the most beautiful and terrible people you’ve ever seen. And they’ve seen you.ONE MINUTENessa will be Called soon. No one thinks she has any chance to survive. But she’s determined to prove them wrong. TIME’S UPCould you survive … them wrong. TIME’S UPCould you survive the Call?A genre-changing blend of fantasy, horror, and folkore, The Call won’t ever leave your mind from the moment you choose to answer it.
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I went in thinking this book would be more of an adventure tale as the kids are Called, but holy **** the Sidhe world is twisted and brutal and violent and totally unexpected every time it’s visited. I have not found a book I couldn’t put down in a long time, but this one had me hooked. It’s like a really twisted version of The Hunger Games, but none of the typical YA tropes will be found here, that’s for sure. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read before.
Getting ready to start ‘The Call’. I had a chance to listen to the author discuss his book at WorldCon this year. Can’t wait to get started!
The Call is a YA dark supernatural fantasy with elements of horror and dystopia in an academic setting. It is both a dark fairy tale and a survival story like The Hunger Games.
Vanessa (Nessa) is an Irish teenager living in a special training college that prepares young people for the day they receive “The Call”. Unsatisfied with the agreement made thousands of years ago with the people of Ireland the monstrous Sidhe that live beyond our world now exact their revenge by destroying the human young people. As the adolescents of Ireland head toward adulthood they are pulled one by one into the Graylands with only 3 minutes of earthly time to survive. The Sidhe’s horrific imagination knows no bounds and most children are sent back dead with their bodies twisted and destroyed. Despite all of her training it is expected that Nessa will not survive her call. Her legs are weakened from Polio and she cannot take anything into the Graylands including a weapon, crutches or even the clothes on her back. As Nessa fights to get stronger and survive her future call a fellow student’s obsession with her twists into hatred and life at the school becomes more dangerous. Like with most fantasy and supernatural thrillers sometimes the biggest monsters are the humans beside us.
The Call is a wildly creative and heart-stopping action packed novel. I highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a dark fairy tale that borders on horror.
This book was AMAZING! I listened to it as an audiobook and I was riveted the entire time. It’s set in an Ireland that has been cut off from the rest of the modern world for 25 years because of the Sidhe (simplifying it immensely, they’re fairies specifically from Irish folklore). The Sidhe were banished from Ireland by the ancient ancestors of the modern population, and have finally begun wreaking their revenge by “spiriting away” youths between 10 and 18 and forcing them to survive a one-day hunt in the hellish lands they were banished to. Young adults have started going to military-esque schools to train to survive their Call (getting spirited away), and very few survive. The main character is a young woman whose legs have been damaged by Polio and isn’t expected to survive her Call, which has made her even more determined to live. The characters, both human and Sidhe, can be cruel and twisted, showing that there may be more the two have in common than they might think. The story continues in the second book, The Invasion.
My 14-year old felt it was interesting.
The Call brings a new voice to the dystopia genre that is fresh, well written, and unique. This is a must read.
I couldn’t put this down! Can’t wait to read the next one!
I just couldn’t really get into the book. I finally just gave up. Not for me, but others may be able to read it all the way through.