Defiance Review

Sorry for the long review! I started rambling...

C.J. Redwine's Defiance takes place in a post apocalyptic world where the Cursed One, a monstrous being, has driven all the world's survivors into walled cities. The Commander took charge and all of the women are trained to be docile creatures, not allowed to do anything. Except, Rachel was trained by her father, a tracker, to fight and survive. When Rachel's father goes missing and announced dead, Logan, the boy she confessed her love to and was turned down, is assigned as her protector. Logan and Rachel must go through the brutal Wasteland trying to find her father, they discover there is a lot more going on than what there seems to be.

Alright so first of all, the cover... I don't think it's a very good cover but I also think she looks really cool in it. She has a truly awesome cape and armband thing. I was actually really pleasantly surprised about this book. I didn't have any expectations for it, so I was surprised with how dark it actually ended up being. I really liked Rachel because so many terrible and awful things are happening to her, but she fights so hard to make it through. I could see her emotionally breaking and I'm curious as to if she'll have ptsd or something in the next book. She really kicked butt though and I thought she was awesome.

I have a problem with a lot of books though, and that's when the romance moves to darn quickly! So while this is a spoiler, I think we've all read enough YA books that we know they will get together. They were also confessing their love to each other. I think this book was in the span of like 2-3 weeks or so. I'm a strong believer in that love does not work that quickly. It bugs me when in every single YA book, they confess their love within two weeks of knowing each other. Yes, Rachel and Logan have known each other for years, but they also did not truly know each other and talk until the events in this book. While I liked both characters and I thought they could have a romance, I found myself rolling my eyes at their dramatic love realizations. I like a slow burn, one that's built up and is truly made through friendship and trust.

I've previously said that Sarah J. Maas is one of my favorite authors and she does a really good slow build for romance/friendships. In Heir of Fire, which is my all-time favorite book, Rowan and Celaena are a friendship that's built slowly and then they eventually learn to trust each other with everything. I think they should end up together because he knows everything about her and still trusts her. I could talk about this book and the relationships in it, but I won't cause maybe I'll do an Heir of Fire book talk when I reread it (which I'm planning to do soon) and this review is really long now! Oops!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this book, but I just keep seeing YA books move so quickly on love and it bugs me so much!