Now that I’m done gloating, here’s what you should know about the series:
In Defiance (the first book in the trilogy), Rachel Adams lives in a post-apocalyptic society (not really a dystopia, there’s a difference, I promise) where women are oppressed. They are not taught how to read or defend themselves. They are only allowed to know what the men in their lives tell them. They cannot even leave their homes without a male protector escorting them.
Rachel’s father, however, thought his daughter should know things. He educated her and trained her to be a warrior. Sha has to keep what she knows a secret, until he disappears on a courier mission, and she believes she has to save him.
The leader of her city declares him dead and assigns her father’s apprentice Logan–the boy she once told she loved him, but who rejected her–as her new protector. Rachel is sure that her father is alive, and decides to escape to prove it. She knows that danger awaits her in the Wasteland, but she has no idea the political and sociological war she is about to be drawn into.
Most people seem to have a strong reaction to this series, whether it’s love it or hate it, and I think it’s because of two things: the misogynistic society and the confusion 
about the world the characters lived in. For the record, the misogyny is not portrayed positively. The whole point is that one educated girl could potentially upset a whole male-dominated society just because she thinks she can. The world building is a little more confusing. You learn what you need to know for the story–what the characters themselves would think to tell someone–but you don’t necessarily learn everything you would in, say, The Hunger Games or Divergent. And I know many people have disagreed with me in their reviews, but I don’t really need to know whether the book takes place in post-destruction Chicago, Hong Kong, or Lima. I was always more interested in whether Rachel’s father was alive and what was going to happen between her and Logan.
And those details don’t focus on the best parts of the series:
- The Commander–the intensely scary leader of their city. What was scary about him was that he seemed so human. He wasn’t pure evil out to oppress women because of his innate resemblance to Satan. He was power-hungry and controlling, but as the series went on, you learned why, yet it didn’t make him a bit less terrifying.
- Logan–I adore when the love interest in a book is a quintessential nerd. Speaking from experience, nerds make the best husbands.
- Quinn and Willow–a brother and sister who were just as scary a duo as the Commander, and who had some killer one-liners sprinkled throughout the three books.
- The romance–it wasn’t perfect, nor was it insta-love, and it just worked.
- The action–I admit, I really like reading books where girls beat the crap out of guys. There’s just something satisfying about it.
If I’ve sold you on this series, the first two books and a companion novella are out, and Deliverance comes out TODAY August 26th. Anyone planning to binge read?
I purchased copies of Defiance and Deception. Harpercollins provided an arc of Deliverance to TN. Opinions are mine.
