The Fire Sermon is the next Hunger Games. Like the main character, Cassandra, I can see the future (at least the future of this book). It will become wildly popular, very well-known, and before long it will be made into a fairly decent movie. 
 Our world, the "Before," ended in a fiery blast hundreds of years before The Fire Sermon begins. Cassandra is born into a post-apocolyptic world where everybody has a twin. One twin is born absolutely flawless, while the other has at least one obvious mutation. 
 "At first, in the struggle to repopulate, the onslaught of twins must have been greeted with joy. So many babies, and so many of them normal. There was always one boy and one girl, with one from each pair perfect." 
 The other twin in each pair was far from "perfect." The Alphas became the leaders, the elites, while the Omegas were labeled as the poison the Alphas cast out. Cass is one of the few Omegas without a visible mutation. She's a seer (I did appreciate the author naming the seer Cassandra). She can see what's going to happen, as well as what is happening at the moment. Still, she is sent away from her family to suffer with the other Omegas, getting the worst land, high taxes, and enduring countless insults. All of the Omegas are treated this way, because the Alphas want to forget their existence. 
 Unfortunately for the Alphas, they're tied to their Omega twins. You can't kill one without the other dying too. 
 "For me, each was a twofold dying. With each Alpha soldier killed, I felt, and sometimes saw, an Omega on the mainland fall. A soldier beneath me took a sword blow that left his face shattered like a broken plate. I closed my eyes and saw a woman with blond hair fall down a gravel path, dropping a bucket of water. A Council soldier climbing one of the fort's outer walls took an arrow in her chest, but when I flinched and closed my eyes I saw a man in a bath slip wordlessly beneath the water." 
 When Cassandra's brother, Zach, becomes one of the leaders of her society, he decides it's too dangerous for him to have Cass out in the world. It wouldn't be hard to kill him through her. So he has her locked up for her own "safety" in the beginning of the book. 
 Obviously, Cass escapes, taking another prisoner with her to freedom. The other prisoner is a boy who remembers nothing of his life before his imprisonment. When Cassandra escaped with him, I remember thinking, "I just know this is going to turn into a romance," and being slightly disappointed. Happily enough, it didn't really. I mean, they become the best of friends, and there is definitely romance to their relationship. There is kissing, but when it happens for the first time it isn't a big deal. In fact, if you aren't paying much attention, you probably wouldn't notice it. The entire thing is pretty PG (they cuddle together in their sleep and once Cass mentions a bruise on her neck but if it goes farther than that it isn't ever mentioned). Yes, there are deep feelings for each other, but the author doesn't waste any time on what the reader already knows. I did sense the start of a love triangle towards the end of the book, and I was again disappointed with the author, but again, I was wrong (thankfully, I've had enough of love triangles in dystopian novels). 
 Most of the book covers the two escapees' flight to somewhere they believe will be safe. I did like the many twists throughout this journey. I saw most of them coming, but some of them surprised me. 
 "'That's the whole problem right there,' I snapped. 'Them and us. Why can't you see that it makes no difference who you kill? You still wipe out both. It's just that you only have to stick your little knife into one of them.'" 
 I loved the message about equality for all people, and about there being more to a person than their physical disabilities. And even if the book moved a little slow at times, it was well-written and interesting. Overall, a great read. 
 ***NOTE*** This is a copy of a review I posted on my blog. See the original post here-http://bookreviews77.com/2015/03/12/t...