Review on Exodus

Exodus by Julie Bertagna.

Mara's island home is drowning as the ice caps melt and Earth loses its land to the ocean. But one night, in the ruined virtual world of the Weave, Mara meets the mysterious Fox - a fiery eyed boy who tells her of the sky cities that rise from the sea. Mara sets sail on a daring journey to find a new life for herself and her friends - instead she discovers a love that threatens to tear her apart...

Well. Wow, this book is amazingly different to anything I've ever read before. It is set 89 years into the future- 2100 and it is a fantasy about what might happen if the ice caps melt, and...well. It's an interesting book.

I haven't quite decided if it makes my favourites list yet, because for me, it was a very slow starting book, the story really starts for me on page 256, and thats abotu a fifth of a way to the end. Don't get me wrong, the chapters and chapters before were good and it was important to have them in the book so that the reader could understand what had gone on in the past and the journey Mara undertakes, but for me the story picks its pace up and I start to get sucked in at page 256.

My heart goes out to Mara, and all the characters really, It must be awful to live in a world that has to resort to olden times to survive because there is no communication between the tiny islands that didn't go under, and every year the sea creeps up closer and closer to their houses and village while there are people living in the sky cities caring only for their own life now that they are safe.

Mara moves from place to place quite quickly, trying desperately to find a way to save her friends and get into the Sky City. When she does get in, she searches for the young fox she once met deep into the cyber world of the Weave.

The characters are well developed, there are twists and turns I do not expect and truth be told, once the action started I was hooked. When it ended, I went straight onto the internet to find the sequel. I do not know whether it will be a trilogy, but I know there is a second book out already and the third due out in June of this year, so I cannot wait to continue to read of Mara's process, the love she found and how it develops when they are so far apart while she is still fighting to save her friends once more.

JB xx