Arena One

Arena One: Slaverunners is the first book in the Survival Trilogy by Morgan Rice. For those of you who think I only review books I recommend, here's the flip side. I didn't like this book at all. I love post-apocalyptic books, and the book jacket made this book sound like a combination of Hunger Games and Life As We Knew It, both of which I read without putting down.

This picture is false advertising.

This book, however, started off with so many ridiculous errors that I wanted to stop before reaching the end of chapter one (fact: you cannot drill into a maple tree with a small knife in below freezing weather and expect sugar sap to just flow out). I kept going, though, because I thought it would get better. It didn't. Ever. Even once. Okay, maybe a few times something reasonable happened, but a lot of the book was the main character, Brooke, doing things she shouldn't be able to do, such as surviving fights with people bigger then her when she was starving, having skills I don't think she could possibly do so well after years of disuse, surviving car wreck after car wreck with minimal injury...I could go on, but you get my point.

The premise of this book is life in 2120 after a major civil war which tore apart the United States. Brooke's sister is kidnapped by slave runners, who (she thinks) want to put her in an arena to fight to the death. Obviously, Brooke wants to save her. There are also a few romantic interests for her, because of course when the human population is down to practically zero, two cute and eligible boys will show up on your doorstep wanting to save you.

I do not recommend this book unless you don't mind stories with a lot of plot holes and a weak premise.