Skyhunter

Author: Marie Lu

Series: Skyhunter #1

Publisher: Roaring Book Press

Release Date: September 29, 2020

A perfect fit in the YA Dystopian category that is Marie Lu at her best! I loved the first series I read by her, and this is going to rank right up at the top!

In the future, the world is a very different place. Strikers are some of the deadliest weapons around with the best fighting skills and loyal to defend Mara, the last free nation left. Talin is a Striker, but also an outcast; she wasn’t born in Mara but fled with her mother after her homeland was invaded. She has no voice after fumes from fires destroyed her vocal cords leaving her to communicate with signs and work to be accepted as a Striker to help destroy the evil Federation who uses mutated humans called Ghosts to win their battles. When Mara captures a changed soldier from the Federation, he turns out to be the answer to their prayers after Talin works to keep him alive and convinces him to work on their side against the Federation. Together they will have to work to try and save them all or die trying.

It has been a while since I have read a great YA/Dystopian that really caught my attention and held it. Marie Lu is great in this genre and really knows how to write in a way that captures readers’ attention and keep it until the very end. It can be hard to write a character that doesn’t speak; Talin lost her ability to speak when she was young and starts communicating through signs. Once she meets Red and has a connection with him, they start communicating through their link and it makes the story flow very smoothly. Each character in this book carries a certain amount of the story and it takes all of them, even the ones that are not very likable, to make the story come together the way it does. The only thing I didn’t like was the few adult themes that I thought weren’t right for a book in the YA section, but they were pretty subtle and not enough for me to not recommend to my kids when they get to the point of reading these books. This is the type of story that I think both girls and boys will enjoy, even though the main character is a female it will appeal to both boys and girls. I recommend this to readers that are fans of Young Adult Dystopian novels with lots of action and drama throughout.