Orleans

by Sherri L. Smith

• ISBN10: 1101607858
• ISBN13: 9781101607855
• Publish Date: 1 March 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Putnam Publishing Group
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

I don't remember where I got this from off-hand and I'm still at work at the moment. I'll update when I get home where I got it from.

I fucking loved Orleans. It has everything I've wanted from a YA dystopian and does it so well.

1.) Characters are on point: Fen is a strong, determined young woman that I couldn't love more. The survivor mentality and struggle is perfect. The Tourist Daniel is well-done as well. I'm not so in love with him because my preferences lean away from the sheltered and naive. I loved reading both their POVs.

2.) The World-Building: believable, poignant, and love how it takes everything into consideration. From the virus, the setup, and the landscape but especially the outside world. Now, it doesn't give us information outside the US, which I know a lot complain about missing (including me) in the genre. However, it does include the quarantined Delta and the rest of the US. Too often only the disaster zone is dealt with leaving far too many questions and possibilities.

I love the why and how the tribes are set and work. Then there's the smuggling and danger that people deal with from others and the environment and just how people are surviving, all of which is done beautifully. The little tidbit of the bees dying off was brilliant and showed how much detail was put into. It really kicked it up a notch for me.

3.) The Science: I love the ideas behind the virus, blood type segregation, and the characterization of scientists. Far too often I've had to complain that scientists are portrayed, well, stupidly. It's usually flat-evil that makes no sense or science as religion. This has neither. There definitely are good and wrong scientists, both of which are done well. The curiosity, the purpose and reasoning that is so often lacking is readily found on both sides.

4.) The Plot: It sounds pretty standard: trying to survive in a dystopian world. Towing along a baby and a tourist spices it up a bit. Usually it's fighting the big bad government and such. What really makes it work and stand out is the setting though. I loved tagging along while they navigated Orleans.

5.) The Writing: I love the way it was written and described. I know a few people were complaining about the "tribe speak" but honestly, I find the complaints beyond personal preference stupid and often elitist. Of course, they knew English in New Orleans before the fall and they're still speaking it in Orleans. African American Vernacular English is a well established variety. The "tribe speak" of Orleans honestly isn't that different and it shouldn't be a trial to read. Not liking it is one thing, being a stupid snob is another. It's like not people (or at least most people) speak and write "proper" English in their day to day lives anyways. English is a living language, which is constantly evolving and changing both verbally and written. Plus, people everywhere have an accent when speaking. They just don't tend to notice their own, hearing it as the natural default and all outside their tribe as accented. I understand not being able to get into a book due to the language (for it's usually older English writing that gets me (and there are plenty who look down on me for that)) but let's not pretend it's anything other than your own issue.

6.) The Ending: The only issue I actually had with Orleans is the ending. At first, it was just the typical open cliffhanger ending that I haaaate. But I was so in love with everything else my immediate concern was "MUST GET NEXT BOOK!". Since I'm behind the times (which I actually like, no waiting!) I assumed this would be no problem. But lo and behold, there isn't one and the author states (paraphrasing) it's a stand alone and that while she won't say never, one isn't forthcoming for the foreseeable future. That's completely her right and everything, but fuuuuuck, does it suck. The ending is wide fucking open. There isn't closure or certainty about anything. at.all. The ONE fucking time I want a YA dystopian series and it's not happening. >:(

[jnikkir]

I was so excited for this book. SO excited. It sounded awesome - doesn't that synopsis sound awesome?? A fierce heroine, battling against the odds to get her leader's baby to safety, befriends a scientist who is braving the walled-off city to find a cure for Delta Fever. I had very high hopes for this one.

Sadly, my hopes didn't pan out. I actually had a really hard time getting through this book.

You know the premise, so I'm just going to talk about my issues (the first-person narration, and a lack of any emotional connection to the plot or characters).

First, Fen's first-person narration. Here's a sample:

This still be a crescent city. It still curve with its arms wrapped around the river. I be walking west, where most of the people be. [...] We pass canals what used to be roads and swamp what used to be dirt. We skirt the swamps and it take time. [Excerpt from ARC.]

I read the first couple pages of the book when I got it in January, and actually thought this would be cool - I was expecting an adjustment period, of course, but then you get used to it, and it adds to the story, right? But for some reason, Fen's narration was really hard for me to get into, and most of the time had me stumbling over sentences trying to parse her dialect. I understand that it needed to be written like that since it's in first-person, because that's how Fen speaks, but to me it just felt like a barrier... instead of adding to the story, it held me back from it. I'm also confused as to why Fen's sections were written in first-person present tense, while Daniel's were written in third-person past tense. Why did Fen's story have to be told in first-person when Daniel's didn't? And why the tense-change as well? Maybe I'm being way too critical... but it did add a layer between me and the story that stopped me from really getting into it.

Maybe I wouldn't have had as much of a problem with those things, though, if I'd felt emotionally connected to the characters at all. Fen is fierce and brave and strong, but she shows almost no emotion throughout the entire book - which is weird since her parts are told in first-person, so we should be able to see inside her head more and see those emotions playing out...? no? Instead she's driven only by self-preservation.

I got the feeling that she wasn't even that concerned with getting her leader's baby out of Orleans, other than to fulfill her promise that she would give the baby a "better life". She even made excuses a couple of times like, "I could just leave the baby here in this slightly-better-but-still-awful-place, this still counts as a slightly better life." More than anything, the baby felt like a means to an end, to help Fen feel like she did her part for her tribe leader. Maybe this behavior is realistic, because her struggles in this harsh environment have shaped who she is and what she thinks she needs to be in order to survive (logical, calculating, and not swayed by emotion), but again, it added a barrier that I couldn't get past and ultimately kept me out of the story.

I was really hopeful that when Daniel showed up -- having lost a brother to Delta Fever, driven to sneak into Orleans to research a cure -- that we would finally see some emotional connection. But even his sections fell flat. Daniel was pretty helpless in Orleans, and he didn't bring a lot of emotion to the story, either. There were a couple instances where Daniel was overcome with his and Fen's situation and I wanted desperately to read that from his perspective -- but those moments were told from Fen's perspective instead, so I didn't really get much out of them.

The reason I rated this book two and a half stars, instead of two, is because it was pretty exciting in places, and the worldbuilding was interesting. But it ends rather abruptly and we don't even get to see much of an outcome of Fen's struggle to save this baby from Orleans. I finished the book thinking, "What, that's it?" =/

I can predict, though, that Orleans will probably be much more successful for fans of Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker. It strikes me as very similar to that series... although I only made it through half of the second book...

{ You can find this review, and others, at my blog! There were books involved... }

[pagingserenity]

ORLEANS is centered around Fen, a native who is left with her leader’s baby to take care of, and Daniel, a scientist from the “Outer States” (the New America). ORLEANS is set in the Delta, also known as Orleans. A disease, known as the Delta Fever, has plagued what used to be known New Orleans. It is in the blood of the natives and deadly. The Delta Fever is the reason why Orleans is no longer part of the United States, and why there even is an “Outer States”. In the Delta it is hard to survive without a tribe classified by blood type. Fen used to be part of the O positive tribe, until one day, it is attacked, and the tribal chief dies.

ORLEANS surprised me in many ways. One thing that surprised me was how the book jumped right into action. I didn't have to wait long for something interesting to happen. It didn't just stop there. The action continued to the very end. That made the book fun to read, and I had a hard time putting it down. I just wanted to keep reading and find out what happens next. That was one of the factors that made the book so good.

The most surprising thing about ORLEANS was not how good it was, (it was really good), but the style of writing half of it was written it. The style of writing is something that makes ORLEANS stick out to me. I think Sherri L. Smith took a risk in writing like that, but it paid off in the end. The book alternates between two different points of views - Fen’s and Daniel’s. Fen was born in Orleans and has never been anywhere else, trapped in the Delta because of the Delta Fever that probably is in her blood. Daniel, on the other hand, was born in the Outer States. One of the differences between the two, is not where they are from, but their education. Fen grew up learning how to survive, not really the traditional education we get today. Daniel grew up going to school and then went to college. Afterwards, he became one of the many scientists trying to find the cure to the Delta Fever, the disease that killed his brother. Their difference in education is reflected in the way they speak and think. Daniel’s thoughts sound more educated, while Fen’s sound less educated. At first, Fen’s way of speaking turned me off. She was introduced first, way before Daniel. When I first read it, all I could think of was “how did this get published?” But the more I read, the more the genius behind it became more and more clear. Sherri L. Smith did a fantastic job capturing the way Fen would have spoke. It made the novel seem even more realistic.

Character wise, I really loved Fen. I felt really bad for her for most of the book. She has a really sad story, and having to put up with a newborn baby and Daniel, the not-so-smart scientist, just made her life more difficult. Fen is really fierce and respectable. She does her best to keep her promises to others, even if those promises would make her life a lot harder. I thought Daniel was kind of stupid in the beginning, not to mention a wimp. If not for Fen, he would have never survived. That brings me to another thing that surprised me about ORLEANS. ORLEANS is the first book I have read in a long time that did not revolve around romance. That made ORLEANS even better, believe it or not.

Throughout the book, Fen and Daniel have one goal, survive living in the Delta and to get out to the Outer States. If you want to find out if they achieve their goal, you’ll have to read the book. Trust me, it’s definitely worth it.

*I received this book as a ARC as a prize from Fiona Paul (author of VENOM). This in no way influenced my review.

Originally posted on Icy Cold Reads