Action-packed and full of adventure, Blood Red Road seems to be the perfect follow up for YA fans craving more of the same Hunger Games adrenaline. While Blood Red Road shares similarities with other heart-pounding, engaging books of the YA genre; Blood Red Road has its fair share of flaws. 
 However unlike many other YA fantasy books today, Blood Red Road doesn't start with a convoluted premise of overbearing government or apocalyptic horror. Instead, Blood Red Road details heroine Saba on a journey to rescue her twin brother Lugh. Through lawless shanties to devastatingly cruel mountain passes, Saba pushes herself to her single minded goal - to find her beloved brother. 
 Blood Red Road has everything to make for a exquisite novel, but sadly it never reaches that point. Saba's single mindedness to find Lugh translates to an overbearing brother complex, which in some angles, could be interpreted as obsessive love. On the same page, Saba's personality toward her younger sister Emmi is not quite as welcoming; she's verbally abusing her at every point, and clearly doesn't love her as much as Lugh. That's not to mention their father, a broken man after the loss of his wife, that relies on the stars to search for his family's destiny. So in the first part of the book, Blood Red Road translates to a girl who has a brother complex, is pretty much abusive to her younger sister, and a stargazing father. 
 As soon as Saba commences her journey to search for Lugh, the plot gets more interesting. Through tough circumstances, Saba needs to unleash her inner strength into physical prowess in order to survive. Which almost seems like a deus ex machina moment, because Saba kicks butt..even though it seems like she's never had any experience. At the same time, Saba meets the infuriating Jack, a cocky, mysterious boy. Which of course translates into the cocky, infuriating male love interest... Saba and Jack's chemistry often seemed awkward, and unrealistic; perhaps this is due to the fact that Saba's behavior toward him just didn't add up. Regardless, Blood Red Road does gave any reader an adventure story - just not a very well fleshed out one. 
 As some other reviews have commented, Saba is extraordinarily capable in terms of physical strength. All the other women in the novel are just as capable as well, which is a welcome reprieve to some other books. Blood Red Road should be commended for its feminist ideas, definitely, but in Saba especially - it doesn't necessarily mean a wonderful character. The gaps in sentiments render Saba a bit illogical and unrelated, which takes away from the overall novel. 
 Yet, there's another underlying problem to Blood Red Road. The writing. Every character in this novel talks in an illiterate, not grammatically correct sense, which I suppose adds to the atmosphere - but to me, it just didn't work. It bothered me throughout the novel the way the words were spelled, the imperfect choppiness, I guess it's in my perfectionist nature? 
 Blood Red Road's plot is engaging, but there are severe gaps in character development and pacing to truly make it an enjoyable experience.