Note: This review is part of the 2016 Summer Reading Diversity Spotlight.
The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
Release Date: September 22, 2015
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Genre: Young Adult Dystopia
ISBN: 978-1481442718
Source: Received From Publisher
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The world is at peace, said the Utterances. And really, if the odd princess has a hard day, is that too much to ask?
Greta is a duchess and crown princess—and a hostage to peace. This is how the game is played: if you want to rule, you must give one of your children as a hostage. Go to war and your hostage dies.
Greta will be free if she can survive until her eighteenth birthday. Until then she lives in the Precepture school with the daughters and sons of the world’s leaders. Like them, she is taught to obey the machines that control their lives. Like them, she is prepared to die with dignity, if she must. But everything changes when a new hostage arrives. Elián is a boy who refuses to play by the rules, a boy who defies everything Greta has ever been taught. And he opens Greta’s eyes to the brutality of the system they live under—and to her own power.
As Greta and Elián watch their nations tip closer to war, Greta becomes a target in a new kind of game. A game that will end up killing them both—unless she can find a way to break all the rules.
***
So at first, this book gave me some serious The Hunger Games whiplash, in regards to how children are treated in war. But here, it’s more about the day to day in war than a journey to fighting back. And also about halfway through, something changed. No spoilers, but it just tonally shifted which you’ll either either be on board for or not. I was so-so there for a minute but then things picked up for me again and as AI really sank its teeth into the story, I was able to really enjoy this book on a different level. But I’m actually surprised to say that while it was the concept that drew me in, it wasn’t the story that kept me reading, rather the beautiful writing and really captivating cast of characters.
You know when you come across a writer who has such a distinct voice? Yeah. That’s Erin Bow. No one else could have written this book the way that she did. That’s voice. It’s structured and layered with emotions and visually stunning settings and I’m just so glad that I read this book because it gives me another author’s writing to look forward to. Her writing, her storytelling is top notch, guys.
As far as the characters go, Greta is bisexual and it’s not often I’ve come across bisexual main characters so this was refreshing, as was seeing her (interracial! yay!) relationship with a Princess bloom. And even though the way this relationship concludes in this story is predictable for sci-fi fans (once you get over the shock of the ending in general), the way that it was laid out was still very compelling and that’s a testament to the writing. It seems so seamlessly calculated, how dynamic these characters and their relationships are. But it speaks volumes when you have a story that is uniquely yours but you can still use a few tropes and no one rolls their eyes.
Story wise, I loved the concept of the sons and daughters of world leaders all being sent to a location as hostages only to be killed if their country goes to war with another. The stakes were extremely high from page one and watching it all play out made for a very, very entertaining handful of hours of reading. I was utterly shocked with the decision that Greta came to by the end of the book and I still don’t quite know how to wrap my head around accepting her decision but overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was so engrossing and is a title I’d definitely recommend to someone in need of a dystopian fix.
The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow is available today.