A review by lookingforamandaa
Dustborn by Erin Bowman

4.0

Dustborn is another book that I read for the 12 Challenge from instagram, but also, I bought it impulsively at the Barnes and Nobel 50% off hardcovers sale. I have absolutely no regrets.
Dustborn follows Delta of Dead River as she fucks shit up. That’s it, end of summary. Just kidding. The story starts with Delta rushing to save her sisters life. Things get messy and when she returns to where her people have settled, she learns that they’ve been attacked and kidnapped. While on her way to rescue them, things go from bad to worse when she’s kidnapped and brought to be sold as a slave. The issue is that Delta has a map of the Verdant branded onto her back that no one is supposed to know about. So, when instead of being sold as a slave, she’s brought to the General (who is the person that had her people kidnapped), and he already knows about her brand, things get complicated very quickly.
I liked Delta. She’s just a girl that makes an incredible number of mistakes and missteps. But she’s trying her hardest to save the lives of the people she cares about. She was all heart and minimal brains. That’s mostly a joke. She just is impulsive and often reckless. But I think that’s why I liked her so much. She doesn’t always think things through, but that just made the story that much more interesting.
The world was compelling and learning more about this mysterious Verdant really kept me interested in the story. I wanted to know if they were going to make it there and what the whole Verdant myth was really about. The politics of the world were easy to understand. Survival is everything and those that have the power determine how you survive, or don’t. I absolutely loved when we finally started to get some answers about this world and its history. I think the mythology (religion?) of the gods in the stars was super interesting, but even more so once we learned where it came from.
Overall, this was an engaging story that was full of twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. It’s set on a planet that’s not terribly easy to live on, which created some high stakes. And the characters were interesting and entertaining. I will absolutely be reading more books by this author.