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lauraebeth's review against another edition
3.0
Found this book because it was on PEN AMERICA'S INDEX OF SCHOOL BOOK BANS in Collierville, TN, a suburb of Memphis. (Pending Investigation). And nothing peak's my curiosity more than something that someone doesn't want kids reading. Written 125ish years into America's future, taking place in Alabama, initially, I couldn't figure out why is was banned, but then Ami runs away from home with the help of her aunts due to her grandfather trying to breed her with a stranger, because only a few females left in society haven't become infertile. The beginning of the book feels real Handsmaid tale-esque, and that's where I thought it was going, Handmaids tale for teens. But once Ami makes it to the place where her mother has been living, she starts to discover things about herself, and lies her grandparents told her and really finds herself and who she wants to be.
Don't see why it should be banned, there are no graphic sex scenes, actual facts about how society is today(re: birth control, Abortion, interracial marriage) Overall, it's a story about a kid finding herself
Don't see why it should be banned, there are no graphic sex scenes, actual facts about how society is today(re: birth control, Abortion, interracial marriage) Overall, it's a story about a kid finding herself
anggarcia5's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
liralen's review
3.0
Apocalypse cults and religion, oh my! This one’s a bit different from a lot of doomsday-religion books in that the apocalypse (so to speak) has happened—Ami’s family has gone off the grid, to be sure, but then…the entire grid has gone off the grid. Something has affected women’s reproductive capabilities to the extent that, over the decades, humanity has become a shadow of its former self. A few women can still reproduce…and in the hopes that she might be one of them, Ami’s family has found her a husband.
Although she’s never questioned her upbringing or her family’s beliefs, Ami takes the first opportunity she gets to run: to seek out her mother, who, according to new information, is only a few miles away. And the world Ami finds outside forces her to question everything she’d held to be true.
Conceptually I liked this, but in practice, my god, everything moves so fast. Ami gets off her compound and to a bigger compound with non-religious people (it’s never clear how much of the world has survived, or what it looks like beyond their small bubbles—who else is out there? We don’t know), and they immediately set about changing her mind about everything. They’re a liberal haven, even by current (real-world, non-dystopia) standards: peaceful, organic living in which everyone collaborates, and everyone is actively anti-racist and anti-homophobic and so on and so forth. And that’s great! But…I had a very hard time believing that Ami, who has never had the slightest conception that homosexuality even exists, would leap straight from an extremely cloistered, conservative, religious upbringing in which it was understood that the biggest thing she could ever do was marry a man and make babies to ‘ohhhh now I understand that I feel this way about a girl, and here’s the one for me!’ in about…two days? Like, there’s literally another teenager who’s supposed to be the Big Cheese of the teenagers who goes on a little walk with Ami, tells her about homosexuality, and then barely utters a peep for the rest of the book. It’s like that with other things, too: Ami’s been told her whole life that the mixing of races is bad (and that, presumably, white people are superior), but as soon as someone explains otherwise, she goes ‘oh, I guess my family’s way of thinking is racist and wrong’ and changes her worldview.
I suspect that the author didn’t want to let Ami be entrenched in racism for long because that would make her an unsympathetic character, and sure, I get that. But…I don’t buy it. Sure, it takes her a minute, but that’s only relative to, e.g., how quickly she gets used to the idea that she might be gay. My preference (as, to be fair, someone who is very often grumble-grumble-there-is-too-much-romance-in-this-book) would have been to take out the romance altogether and give Ami more time and space to change her mind about things, maybe eventually realising at the end of the book that she might be more into girls than boys but not because of someone specific.
I also don’t buy that even this hippie-go-liberal compound would (in a world that seems to have very few people left in it) be so staunchly pro-choice—not just when it comes to abortion but also when it comes to having, or trying to have, kids in the first place. They’re apparently surviving well enough, so I guess it’s working out for them, but I struggled to see how a community of about sixty people could sustain itself for generations if the majority of the women aren’t fertile and not all of those women are going to try to have children. (This isn’t an argument for all of them trying: it’s an argument for a much more complex discussion in the book.)
Also, a small grumpy-reader note: The trip that took me five days to walk took only two going upriver on the boat (210) … We docked at the fishing camp… It took us two more days to walk inland to the hi-way, and then there it was, Heavenly Shepherd (213) … “We’ve been traveling for two days, and we need to rest,” I said (216). So it’s two days of travel or four? Another thing we’ll never know.
Ultimately what I think I was missing is the bigger picture. There’s apparently still some government left? I guess? But what form it takes, or what the population is, or how spread out…no idea. No idea what’s going on in other countries. No idea if the population is still on a decline. No idea what other small communities are doing. No sense of external, or even really internal, threat. So many questions!
Although she’s never questioned her upbringing or her family’s beliefs, Ami takes the first opportunity she gets to run: to seek out her mother, who, according to new information, is only a few miles away. And the world Ami finds outside forces her to question everything she’d held to be true.
Conceptually I liked this, but in practice, my god, everything moves so fast. Ami gets off her compound and to a bigger compound with non-religious people (it’s never clear how much of the world has survived, or what it looks like beyond their small bubbles—who else is out there? We don’t know), and they immediately set about changing her mind about everything. They’re a liberal haven, even by current (real-world, non-dystopia) standards: peaceful, organic living in which everyone collaborates, and everyone is actively anti-racist and anti-homophobic and so on and so forth. And that’s great! But…I had a very hard time believing that Ami, who has never had the slightest conception that homosexuality even exists, would leap straight from an extremely cloistered, conservative, religious upbringing in which it was understood that the biggest thing she could ever do was marry a man and make babies to ‘ohhhh now I understand that I feel this way about a girl, and here’s the one for me!’ in about…two days? Like, there’s literally another teenager who’s supposed to be the Big Cheese of the teenagers who goes on a little walk with Ami, tells her about homosexuality, and then barely utters a peep for the rest of the book. It’s like that with other things, too: Ami’s been told her whole life that the mixing of races is bad (and that, presumably, white people are superior), but as soon as someone explains otherwise, she goes ‘oh, I guess my family’s way of thinking is racist and wrong’ and changes her worldview.
I suspect that the author didn’t want to let Ami be entrenched in racism for long because that would make her an unsympathetic character, and sure, I get that. But…I don’t buy it. Sure, it takes her a minute, but that’s only relative to, e.g., how quickly she gets used to the idea that she might be gay. My preference (as, to be fair, someone who is very often grumble-grumble-there-is-too-much-romance-in-this-book) would have been to take out the romance altogether and give Ami more time and space to change her mind about things, maybe eventually realising at the end of the book that she might be more into girls than boys but not because of someone specific.
I also don’t buy that even this hippie-go-liberal compound would (in a world that seems to have very few people left in it) be so staunchly pro-choice—not just when it comes to abortion but also when it comes to having, or trying to have, kids in the first place. They’re apparently surviving well enough, so I guess it’s working out for them, but I struggled to see how a community of about sixty people could sustain itself for generations if the majority of the women aren’t fertile and not all of those women are going to try to have children. (This isn’t an argument for all of them trying: it’s an argument for a much more complex discussion in the book.)
Also, a small grumpy-reader note: The trip that took me five days to walk took only two going upriver on the boat (210) … We docked at the fishing camp… It took us two more days to walk inland to the hi-way, and then there it was, Heavenly Shepherd (213) … “We’ve been traveling for two days, and we need to rest,” I said (216). So it’s two days of travel or four? Another thing we’ll never know.
Ultimately what I think I was missing is the bigger picture. There’s apparently still some government left? I guess? But what form it takes, or what the population is, or how spread out…no idea. No idea what’s going on in other countries. No idea if the population is still on a decline. No idea what other small communities are doing. No sense of external, or even really internal, threat. So many questions!
books_over_everything's review
4.0
Initial Thoughts
I was excited to be chosen for this tour. I have been watching a ton of TV shows about cults lately and this dystopian setting seemed like it would really fit that theme.
Some Things I Liked
Ami’s story. I really enjoyed the way that the focal point of the story was on Ami herself and her journey of self discovery. There were excellent supporting characters but, the crux of the story was about Ami.
Cult vibes. Heavenly Shepherd was most certainly a cult. They had extreme views, a hideous dress code, and various other rules that would seem insane to an outsider. I absolutely loved the way Ami discovered what Heavenly Shepherd was as well as her introduction to all of the things she was missing in the real world.
One Thing I Wasn’t Crazy About
The explanation of the infertility. I found myself confused at a point because was it just Ami’s family that had this problem? Ami obviously discovered people who didn’t seem quite so plagued with the issue so I couldn’t understand if she was simply lied to or if the problem wasn’t explained clearly enough for my understanding.
Series Value
Ami’s story feels complete. However, I think this world is interesting and I’d be eager to know more about it. I also really enjoyed Kristy Dallas Alley’s writing and would read her future novels.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed this book. I didn’t realize how much I was missing a book like this until I read it. Ami’s story was different from anything I had read in a while and I loved that.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommendations for Further Reading
Escaping Eleven by Jerri Chisholm – if you’re looking for a dystopian story where the societal structure is not all that it seems, try this new release.
The Grace Year by Kim Liggitt – if you’re looking for those Handmaid’s Tale vibes, look no further than this 2019 release.
I was excited to be chosen for this tour. I have been watching a ton of TV shows about cults lately and this dystopian setting seemed like it would really fit that theme.
Some Things I Liked
Ami’s story. I really enjoyed the way that the focal point of the story was on Ami herself and her journey of self discovery. There were excellent supporting characters but, the crux of the story was about Ami.
Cult vibes. Heavenly Shepherd was most certainly a cult. They had extreme views, a hideous dress code, and various other rules that would seem insane to an outsider. I absolutely loved the way Ami discovered what Heavenly Shepherd was as well as her introduction to all of the things she was missing in the real world.
One Thing I Wasn’t Crazy About
The explanation of the infertility. I found myself confused at a point because was it just Ami’s family that had this problem? Ami obviously discovered people who didn’t seem quite so plagued with the issue so I couldn’t understand if she was simply lied to or if the problem wasn’t explained clearly enough for my understanding.
Series Value
Ami’s story feels complete. However, I think this world is interesting and I’d be eager to know more about it. I also really enjoyed Kristy Dallas Alley’s writing and would read her future novels.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed this book. I didn’t realize how much I was missing a book like this until I read it. Ami’s story was different from anything I had read in a while and I loved that.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommendations for Further Reading
Escaping Eleven by Jerri Chisholm – if you’re looking for a dystopian story where the societal structure is not all that it seems, try this new release.
The Grace Year by Kim Liggitt – if you’re looking for those Handmaid’s Tale vibes, look no further than this 2019 release.
sbrads's review
3.0
This is a story about a girl who grew up in isolation discovering the outside world and the questions and confusion that goes along with it. It touches on important topics but never goes too deep into anything. The short page count keeps everything moving at a pretty quick pace, though it never feels rushed.
I didn't really go in with any expectations, but I did end up enjoying it. 3.5 stars
I didn't really go in with any expectations, but I did end up enjoying it. 3.5 stars
readinggrrl's review against another edition
4.0
Born into a world where bearing children is becoming rarer and rarer her family creates a compound to stay safe and to live by the rule of the Lord. Ami's mother has fled the compound and left Ami behind. When Ami is 16 her grandfather brings home a stranger who he wants to "mate" with Ami to continue their bloodline. Worried and scared Ami flees with the help of her Aunts to find her mother. What she finds is so different from her upbringing its almost a shock to her system. Ami always believed it was her destiny to marry and produce babies but that isn't the way the community her mother is a part of believes. They believe in free will and love. People pair off as they want, create families, and have children if they want. There are also gay couples and mix race couples on the compound something Ami was taught was wrong.
Ami also meets people her age for the first time and while it is overwhelming she likes that she can play and learn from people her age. However when she meets Jessie something strange takes over her body that she has never felt before. Could this be love?
This is a beautiful coming of age story, where Ami learns not just about herself but about standing up for whats right, learning about love and intolerance. A really well done dystopian story with a slightly different twist than many of the others I've read.
Ami also meets people her age for the first time and while it is overwhelming she likes that she can play and learn from people her age. However when she meets Jessie something strange takes over her body that she has never felt before. Could this be love?
This is a beautiful coming of age story, where Ami learns not just about herself but about standing up for whats right, learning about love and intolerance. A really well done dystopian story with a slightly different twist than many of the others I've read.
itsme_lori's review
4.0
#readathon
Really surprising. I couldn't stop reading about Ami! Her story shows just how easy it is for kids to share the beliefs of those who raise them and what can happen once those kids step out into the real world. It's a coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalypse future where most women have gone sterile and having babies has become women's most important job but Ami's not sure that's what she wants.
Ami's been raised on a compound (with cult-like qualities) founded by her great-great-grandfather by her grandparents after being left by her mother, for reasons explained in the book. When she turns 16 and her grandparents bring a man to the compound basically to breed her, she runs away with the help of her aunt. And what follows is Ami's realization that the world outside her compound might be a little different than her extremely religious, racist, misogynist grandfather might have raised her to believe.
It seems like this would be a very dark book but it actually turned out to be a sort of light introduction to the post-apocalyptic/dystopian book genre. There are references to breeding and mating but no actual descriptions were given nor acts on the page (aside from some consensual kissing). And as someone who has read some very dark post-apocalyptic worlds, I kept waiting for it to take a dark turn or for people to turn on Ami or bad situations to happen, but it really does just focus on Ami learning about who she is and what she wants, the world she now lives in and her hopes for a future that might be different than what she was raised to believe in. And it turns out to be a very hopeful story with moments of sadness and heartbreak but an overall feeling of being true to yourself and finding love and happiness even when times are tough. I thought it was really well done and I think a lot of young people will enjoy this book.
CW: mentions of racism, suicide, depression, stillborn babies, death during delivery, abandonment, religion, breeding, homophobia
Really surprising. I couldn't stop reading about Ami! Her story shows just how easy it is for kids to share the beliefs of those who raise them and what can happen once those kids step out into the real world. It's a coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalypse future where most women have gone sterile and having babies has become women's most important job but Ami's not sure that's what she wants.
Ami's been raised on a compound (with cult-like qualities) founded by her great-great-grandfather by her grandparents after being left by her mother, for reasons explained in the book. When she turns 16 and her grandparents bring a man to the compound basically to breed her, she runs away with the help of her aunt. And what follows is Ami's realization that the world outside her compound might be a little different than her extremely religious, racist, misogynist grandfather might have raised her to believe.
It seems like this would be a very dark book but it actually turned out to be a sort of light introduction to the post-apocalyptic/dystopian book genre. There are references to breeding and mating but no actual descriptions were given nor acts on the page (aside from some consensual kissing). And as someone who has read some very dark post-apocalyptic worlds, I kept waiting for it to take a dark turn or for people to turn on Ami or bad situations to happen, but it really does just focus on Ami learning about who she is and what she wants, the world she now lives in and her hopes for a future that might be different than what she was raised to believe in. And it turns out to be a very hopeful story with moments of sadness and heartbreak but an overall feeling of being true to yourself and finding love and happiness even when times are tough. I thought it was really well done and I think a lot of young people will enjoy this book.
CW: mentions of racism, suicide, depression, stillborn babies, death during delivery, abandonment, religion, breeding, homophobia
theawkwardbookw's review
2.0
Want to see more bookish things from me? Check out my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCferU-BCL2dlFjWdD0rS75Q
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review*
2.5/5 Stars
Since she was born, Ami has been raised by her grandparents on a compound in isolation. After the world fell apart, many woman became infertile, so Ami has grown up believing that her sole duty is to have babies, like her mother once did. When Ami was a baby, her mother left, to escape the government coming to breed her. When her grandfather brings an older man to the compound in the hopes of impregnating her, she runs away in the hopes of finding her mother.
I wanted to like this way more than I did. I was initially very excited, because I love cult books, but I was BORED through out this whole story. I did like Ami's character development and exploration of her beliefs, I think this story could help a lot of people who have grown up in extremely strict religious households. It may give them the knowledge (for lack of a better word) that they can form their own opinions and step away from what they have been taught growing up. I do think that her development was a bit rapid and pretty unrealistic, if she was meant to be THAT brainwashed by her upbringing, but alas. The romance was also super instalovey, which I am not a fan of... so I just wasn't invested in this story at all.
Overall, I just found this extremely underwhelming.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review*
2.5/5 Stars
Since she was born, Ami has been raised by her grandparents on a compound in isolation. After the world fell apart, many woman became infertile, so Ami has grown up believing that her sole duty is to have babies, like her mother once did. When Ami was a baby, her mother left, to escape the government coming to breed her. When her grandfather brings an older man to the compound in the hopes of impregnating her, she runs away in the hopes of finding her mother.
I wanted to like this way more than I did. I was initially very excited, because I love cult books, but I was BORED through out this whole story. I did like Ami's character development and exploration of her beliefs, I think this story could help a lot of people who have grown up in extremely strict religious households. It may give them the knowledge (for lack of a better word) that they can form their own opinions and step away from what they have been taught growing up. I do think that her development was a bit rapid and pretty unrealistic, if she was meant to be THAT brainwashed by her upbringing, but alas. The romance was also super instalovey, which I am not a fan of... so I just wasn't invested in this story at all.
Overall, I just found this extremely underwhelming.