Rootless

by Chris Howard

[layawaydragon]

I just finished this for ARC August! I'll be posting a review shortly.
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Howard calls the series "Mad Max meets Lord of the Rings tree-logy” and I disagree about The Lord of the Rings part. Maybe it changes in the following books, but…that’s a bit much. I’d say if you like [b:Breathe|11544466|Breathe (Breathe, #1)|Sarah Crossan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1330286837s/11544466.jpg|16484181], give it a go. It’s like that, but with a different spin on the environmental issues and less romance drama angst. +1 for the informative pun though.

Trigger Warning: Throwing people into ovens.

Rootless takes place in an Earthen wasteland caused by environmental fuck ups like climate change. What’s unique is that it includes GMOs and corn oil which makes so much fucking sense I wonder why no one else, including me, thought of it.

The best part though is it’s not a black and white “GMOs are evil created by evil scientists”. Everyone be dead without them. At the very end there’s a question of “have they gone too far?” but I don’t think it’s the main point. Honestly, they seem to have a point but did it in a shittactularly wrong way. Greed, classism, and racism though? Still a goddamn problem.

It takes a lot for a dystopian to throw me for a loop and Rootless wasn’t up to the task. I called the twist reveal before the climax on page 104. However, I really enjoyed the journey and don’t have frustrated notes wishing they’d clue in or hurry up.

While I’m curious on where it goes from here, there is one thing that still bothers me about the end. There was something that was just so convenient. I hate it. Hate. It. Wish it went the opposite way, that’d have been interesting. But nope! *sigh*

Characters: White is NOT default.

Honestly, I imagined most of them as POC without a problem besides some specifically white girls. There weren’t many descriptions of them and I filled it in with what I wanted. If I’m “wrong”, bite me. Would’ve been nice if there was more explicitly POC characters of course, but I worked with what I got.

Romance: I like Punk Girls

No love triangle. Insta-connection but I don’t think they crossed the line to insta-love. Maybe I just liked Punk Girl too much to really care. Bayan is alright, but seems a bit immature. Or I’m too old for this.

3 Stars. Maybe 3.5. For the interesting premise, the unique path it took, and characters I enjoyed. There’s nothing bad or wrong with it, and I do plan to continue the series but…gut says it’s average good. Slightly better than most recent apocalyptic dystopians I’ve read.