Blightborn

Book Title: Blightborn

Author: Chuck Wendig

Series: The Heartland Trilogy #2
Date Started: July 14th 2015

Date Completed: July 24th 2015

Genres: Dystopian, Action, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Romance
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Stars

Final Rating: Four stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I have so much fun reading these books. Past the decent story and the writing and characters, the enjoyment from just getting through this series is enough for me to want to keep coming back.

While I don't feel Wendig's writing has dramatically developed since Under the Empyrean Sky, I can't deny how much the humour engages me. However boyish and immature at times it's really entertaining: I have a feeling it's a particular kind of comedy that won't appeal to everyone so don't be too disappointed if you don't get it.

The big variable as to whether you get on with the Heartland stories is the world. Wendig has a very bizarre imagination, and the concept he creates are really key in the development of the story and characters - and it can be quite hard to get. Through the first book I got distracted by the unusualness of the living corn and the Blight (a 'disease' where people start growing vines through their bodies - see what I mean?), but because I read the second book next to the first it became a lot easier to accept the strangeness and focus on the story.

I really love how the story's expanding as it progresses: the characters are continually being split up and reunited even within a single story, and the way their paths meet and then diverge regularly keeps the pace up. The diversity of settings also interested me as it allows us a huge view on the world previously denied in the last book at the same time (the simultaneous events happening from different perspectives was particularly good). Wendig is also beginning to explore more controversial issues, and quite well in my opinion: subjects like sexuality and abuse are broached, and dealt with in a positive way.

The conclusion to Blightborn was a bit disappointing for me, as it was similar to the ending of Under the Empyrean Sky. The characters have developed as individuals, but as for their positions in the story we still have the same sort of construct and protagonist powers. Having said that I'm definitely looking forward to reading the conclusion to the series.

The Heartland Trilogy didn't capture me straight away with its characters, but as the books have progressed they've become more complex. My favourite aspect was that nobody was completely loyal: they're doing whatever they think is best like people do in reality, even if it ends up ruining everything.

Admittedly, I'm still kind of indifferent towards Cael as a character, but as a protagonist I really like how he's going quite a different way from everyone else in the story. It's nice and refreshing to have the main character going off on his own path while everyone else keeps going without him - but still being affected by his actions.

I started to fall in love with Gwennie in this book. She's becoming darker and really came into her own power and strength independently in Blightborn. There's definitely been better development of women compared to the first book, but I can't help but feel their stories are still centered around romance: the boys only talk about her in terms of her position to them, and all other female characters are either attached to family or presented as a betrayer or weak.

I felt the pacing in Blightborn was much better than Under the Empyrean Sky: the diversity of setting and variety of characters was probably the main reason for this. Because we follow so many people in various situations, there's always something going on and it's usually a little different from everything else. A small issue I found with the previous book was the pretty much solid focus on Cael and his story that took place in the same landscape; jumping between characters made it a lot more engaging.

Though I don't want to compare this series to anything else, I feel a similar audience to The Maze Runner or Charlie Higson's The Enemy would be engaged by these books. Personally, I found reading the first two books close together really helped not only in keeping the story fresh in my mind, but also in terms of acclimatising to Wendig's frankly bizarre imagination. There may be a few small details that get to me, but overall The Heartland Trilogy is great fun and definitely worth the read.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20483018-blightborn