So here's a review for the book Year One which is the first book in Nora Roberts's dystopian/romance series: The Chronicles of the One. I had fairly high hopes for this book since I do actually really like the futuristic detective series she writes as J.D. Robb and I have enjoyed the romance novels of hers I've written, plus I am all over dystopian fiction...but this book is a mess. Like a real big mess. I gave it a 2/5 stars on GoodReads. As always there could be spoilers in this review.
So this book takes place at the beginning of a plague that is wiping out humanity at unprecedented rates and with unprecedented speeds. You go from showing mild symptoms to dead within days. Mostly you follow a woman named Lana and her partner, Max, who are self-proclaimed witches. Society collapses fast and as society collapses a faction of survivors is shown to have magical powers...in a fantastic beasts/magical beings sort of way. There's a paramedic who can tell if people are going to live or die by looking at them, and an intern at a news station who is a faerie. As the plague wipes people out and magic takes over, Lana and Max both get stronger as well. As you go through the book, these peoples stories converge and separate over and over again.. The plague was good, the dystopia was good, and the magic was OK....then it hit the religious symbology very, very hard. Like Chronicles of Narnia hard. Lana ends up pregnant and practitioners of "black magic" are after her and her baby while some white supremacist-esque survivors who don't have magic just want to kill all magic users. Then Max sacrifices herself in an attack by these black magic/supremacists on their community and pregnant Lana flees to keep her baby safe from people who will do it harm. She senses that the baby will be the one to save them all and bring balance to the world. As her due date approaches she's found by a man while she's stealing food from his farm and he takes her in to have her baby. They begin a relationship despite her being like 8.5 months pregnant and having lost the "love of her life" six months or less before. In a super dramatic climax she has the baby at the farmhouse, I think during a storm or something but I could be wrong, and the guy who lives on the farm delivers the baby and there's a very trite explanation of how her baby has two fathers and he loves them both already and he'll keep them safe so baby can save the world. And that's where the book ends.
It got very Jesusy at the end with the savior of the world born of a magical entity (Lana's partner Max, the white witch) and to be raised by another normal man. Really all that was missing from that allegory was the baby being born in the barn instead of the house. Even setting the overbearing allegory aside, this book was a mess. I mean plague-based dystopian plus Walking Dead end of the world re-establishment of society plus Christian allegory plus fantasy creatures...I don't know what this book was supposed to be but it was a disjointed mess at the end. I borrowed the eBook copy of this from the library and I have the second book in paperback that was loaned to me by my mom's friend but I don't think I care enough to continue the series. In reality I found the main character, Lana, insufferable and I kind of wanted someone to punch her in the face on multiple occasions. Alas that did not happen and she survived the book, alive and ready to mother the savior of the world.
So in short, I disliked the book. I didn't hate it but I didn't like it either and I probably won't read any other books in the series. Life's too short to read crappy books. So I gave ti a 2/5 stars and now that I've done the review I won't be revisiting it again.
Happy Reading!
Richelle & Emma
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