Enclave (The Razorland Trilogy, 1)

A dystopia leaves us faced with some big choices, but a fairly common decision is that of safety vs. freedom. Would you be willing to be subservient and blindly follow orders if it meant your community was safe? Even if it meant you had to deal with murder, sacrifice, and other impossible choices? Or would you rather take your chances in the ugly world if it meant your decisions were your own? Even if it meant survival was less than likely and surely not to last terribly long? These are the questions you will find yourself asking while reading the first book in the Razorland series, Enclave by Ann Aguirre.All Deuce ever wanted was to make it to age 15 where she got her name and her new job: Huntress. Living in the subway tunnels underneath the city, the College Enclave has a very strict way of doing things, and this is what has kept them alive. Children die so often they remain unnamed until they are 15. Then they are named and given their job, Hunter, Breeder, or Builder. The Hunters are responsible for going out into the tunnels to gather food for the Enclave, as well as keeping the Freaks at bay.The Freaks are weird monsters that are human/zombie type creatures. They are constantly looking for meat (fresh or rotten) to eat, have sharp teeth and hideous claws. They will even resort to eating each other, but they aren't particularly bright and don't work together, or so the Enclave thought. When Deuce and her new partner, Fade (not born in the Enclave) come across a blind boy from another Enclave, they are sent to on a suicide mission to see if the boy's Enclave really did fall to the Freaks. When they surprisingly make it back to their own Enclave with scary news of Freaks working together, the Elders refuse to believe it. Instead, they seem to be determined to live in ignorance of the inevitable threat that will destroy the Enclave and every person in it. They even go so far as to plant banned artifacts in people's rooms and sacrifice them as examples. When Deuce's best friend is accused of hoarding artifacts, Fade and Deuce take the blame and are exiled from the Enclave.Deuce assumes going Topside (above ground) is a death sentence, but Fade tells her he used to live there and he thinks they can make it. He warns her about gangers- gangs of men who only use women as breeders and hunt other men for sport if they won't join their gang. Unfortunately, the warning isn't enough, and they are captured by a gang called the Wolves. Stalker, head Wolf, claims Deuce for his own. He has plans for her once he finishes hunting Fade (think "The Most Dangerous Game") and he sends her with another young woman name Tegan to get cleaned up. What he doesn't expect is that Deuce isn't about to go down without a fight, and she is taking Tegan with her. Together, they free Fade and manage to dismantle the Wolves' hunting party one by one.Once they are free of the Wolves, they continue on their journey north, where Fade's father always told him life would be safer. Along the way, however, it becomes clear the Freaks aren't just in the tunnels anymore. They are Topside and they are hungry. When the Wolves find Fade, Deuce, and Tegan, the Freaks attack, leaving Stalker as the lone Wolf surviving. He decides to stick with them and head north, seeing the futility of returning to the city if these creatures are coming up to the surface. Can they find the land to the north where life continues as it did before the world came crashing down? Will Deuce lose Fade to more tragedy and loss than he can handle? Can Tegan, the weakest of the group, survive the journey, especially alongside her former captor who she wants to see dead and bloody?Now, clearly you know by now I have a dystopic/post-apocalyptic "soft-side". I love 'em! Call me dark, weird, creepy, whatever, but I can't help it... I love reading about The End of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI). Some are good, some are bad, but occasionally you find the ones that are phenomenal. Welcome to Enclave. Simply addictive. My only complaint about this book? The next book is over a YEAR away! The world Aguirre weaves is so intricate and believable. The creepy Freaks gave me nightmares last night and were way too zombie-like not to make me barricade the door (but they aren't quite zombies). The characters are interesting and have layers you end up peeling back layer by layer. Finally, the journey is one you would be terrified to take, but can't resist tagging along on. This was an amazing story of epic proportions that will keep you angry at Aguirre for not pumping out the next book faster!The language is very tame, and the content is typical for this genre, but not overly gory or bloody. There are life and death scenes of course, but they aren't terribly graphic. YA Lit has taken some criticism for giving teens topics that are "too heavy", but I think those books do something important for our young readers: they get to experience the lives of survivors. In those books, kids survive the apocalypse, oppressive governments, rape, torture, bullying, gay bashing, abuse, eating disorders, and so much more.

Deuce has always wanted to be a Hunter and she finally is. She is now one of the elite who helps protect the underground enclave from Freaks, zombie like creatures that have overtaken the only world Deuce has ever known. Except when she's paired with the mysterious and aloof Fade, the only boy who has ever seen Topside and lived, she begins to question her entire existence and the Elders who control them.Enclave is another addition the ever growing YA Dystopian genre. I haven't read that many and I consider The Hunger Games one of the best books ever so I was a little leery as to whether Enclave would live up to what I consider the Holy Grail of Dystopian.I don't think Ann is re-writing the genre in any way but man oh man did I love this one! I talked about the characters for days afterwards; I even talked my husband into reading it just so I could discuss it with someone.I'm not sure why this story resonated with me as opposed to other dystopian novels. Maybe it was that this was a world of children, where no one lives much past their 20th birthday. Maybe it's the idea of not being able to choose your own path. Or of identifying a "brat" as a number rather than a name (Girl 96 or Boy 12), until you're old enough to attend the naming ceremony in which you receive a series of cuts with a razor. The number of cuts denotes your profession and what object your blood happens to fall on is now your name.Your career assignments are either a Breeder, Builder or Hunter, depending on how you best serve the enclave. The Breeder option rankled the most for obvious reasons but the Builder and Hunters bothered me in other ways. Yes, thankfully you are not on a breeding schedule with people chosen only for their genetics, not out of love but nor are you allowed any affection with the opposite sex. All encounters are chaperoned less you produce inferior children that won't contribute to the enclave. A common touch or a pat on the shoulder for comfort is not allowed.This is all horrific enough but the way these children handled it was what broke my heart. They dealt with it. Yes, they felt some despair but they weren't broken, or whiny. They believed the Elders and did whatever helped the whole survive. They acted more mature than most adults I know. For some reason I desperately wanted to give them hope or show them what life could be.Enclave felt less like a book and more like a movie to me. It is bleak and at moments I didn't think I could take much more but the story just moves and takes you with it. I could see it. It's also filled with hope and a surprising amount of humor and humanity. The pacing is perfect. We're never in any one place too long. The scenes change, characters develop and grow. Just like Deuce & Fade, we have to keep moving on. When they were in the dark tunnels running from the Freaks - I felt like I was there in the tunnels. When Deuce was taking her first gulp of fresh air and seeing a bird for the first time - I ducked, just like she did.Deuce and Fade meet others on their journey and there was not one character in the book that I didn't want to know more about. They eventually pair up with two others kids, Stalker and Tegan. Every character was multi layered and complex. Deuce quickly became one of my favorite heroines. No whining, no insufferable internal monologue, she learns from her mistakes. I LOVED her. They all make mistakes and difficult choices to survive. Would I make the same choices? Probably not in some of their cases but I could understand all of them. Even the bad guys weren't so easy to write off.Stalker in particular could have been written as the "snarky bad boy" to Fade's "good guy" but thankfully she didn't go that way. The romance isn't over played in Enclave. It is but one element, added when it furthered the plot, not as a way to lure young girls to read the book. So much dystopian these days is written as a romance rather than about actual survival. This could very well be a book that guys would be interested in too. My husband read it in four hours and enjoyed it.Some people may disagree with me on this part but I felt that Enclave had a very satisfying ending. Not until I finished did I realize not much had been answered, yet I wasn't left frustrated by questions. I was swept up in the journey. There is definitely more ground to cover and I'm happy to say that this is a trilogy (you won't hear me say that very often!). I can't wait to take that next step into the world Ann has created.Really I could go on and on but you get the idea - I loved it. I really hate long gushy reviews myself and I know not everyone will feel the same way but I am so happy to be this excited about a book again.

I did really enjoy this but thought it lost its way around the middle. It started off well in the tunnels from the old subway underneat what was New York City, with the main character Deuce just trying her best to help herself and others survive. The community that had been built in the depths of the tunnel was interesting and I would have liked to have seen this developed more with the tension occurring within and the threats from outside, but this never happens as Deuce and her hunting partner Fade are quickly exiled.From there, I thought the book quickly got boring. I thought that what happens up in the city was similar to various other dystopian novels I have read. Deuce and Fade quickly realise that if they want to survive then they must head north out of the city. It began to get more exciting as soon as they had left the city limits, with them picking up a few new friends along the way. The last quarter of the book was just as good as the beginning.I thought the characters themselves were well developed – I liked the fact that they all had their flaws, especially Stalker. He and Tegan add more excitement to the story as I thought it would have been boring had Deuce and Fade been running around for the majority of the book on their own.The story itself is a mix of The Walking Dead and Fallout. I’d have liked to find out more about the “Freaks” so hopefully more detail will be given later in the series as to what they are and where they came from. It also isn't that long and so is a quick and easy read and doesn't really drag in parts. The ending left things open for future books in the series. I did enjoy the book, and I’d like to read the rest of the series but I don't think I'm in any hurry to do so.

I wasn't the biggest fan of this book, but then I hadn't quite worked out before I bought it that the enemies, the Freaks, are basically zombies. I don't find it that easy to get into a book where the baddies are 100% baddie with no redeeming features. We didn't get to find out how they became what they are, either. Perhaps the sequels expand on that.The main character, Deuce, goes through something of a learning curve, but it's hard to like her at the beginning because she is so accepting of circumstances that seem immoral, or amoral, at least, and it's hard to like her at the end because she is remarkably accepting of a very bad guy, possibly even in a romantic way.The book takes us through a number of scenarios that might arise is a post-apocalyptic future, such as tribal set-ups; severe punishment of people who have children when they shouldn't, or who hoard food or other resources; obsession with breeding to the extent that some tribes adopt rape as a culture; eating decades-old tinned food; hiding in derelict, rusting trains and half-demolished buildings, etc. Sadly I felt that whilst I can believe these things would happen, we tore through them at such a pace and in such little detail that it felt like there was a tick-list somewhere. Perhaps I just felt that way because I was more interested in these things than in the zombies or the slightly unsympathetic lead, Deuce.Not for me, then. But it's not a terrible book. If you like zombies, give it a go.

In College enclave, hidden in the tunnels beneath a ruined New York, people only earn the right to a name if they survive their first fifteen years. Once you age enough to leave the ranks of unnamed brats, you choose a path as a Breeder, a Builder or a Hunter. Deuce has wanted to be a Huntress for as long as she can remember so she is thrilled to join their ranks, even when she is paired with Fade a boy who grew up outside the enclave. A Hunter's job is to patrol the tunnels, bringing back food and fighting the monsters known as Freaks but as the Freaks become more intelligent, Deuce is forced to question the rules she has lived her life by.This is the first in the Razorland trilogy and it was a book I approached with trepidation. I'd seen good reviews, it sounded interesting, even the trailer looked good but something made me hesitate. Now I've read it I really regret that hesitation as this is an outstanding read. Set in a future where people have taken refuge in underground tunnels, it soon becomes clear the author has really done her research as the narrative has a realistic take on how difficult that life would be.The dystopia and world building are excellent as by introducing Deuce at the start of her Huntress career, the reader is introduced to the world alongside Deuce meaning that there is no info dumping and the revelations come in some surprising twists and turns. The plot is tightly written and a steady pace is maintained throughout as Deuce's world steadily expands beyond the tunnels that used to be all she knew. The dystopia itself is scarily believable yet leaving room for new facts to emerge.Deuce is a great lead character as she is strong and relentless. I found it really easy to identify with her, despite the fact our lives have nothing in common. Her determination to serve her enclave and her gradual realisation that things aren't okay made me like her. Fade is the perfect way for Deuce's illusions to be shattered. He doesn't maliciously change her world, just points out things with the perspective of an outsider allowing the revelations to happen naturally. The romance between them takes a backseat to the action but it is nevertheless well written and developed.The Freaks quickly become a horrifying threat, and their existence develops alongside the main plot. They quickly go from dangerous but stupid monsters, to terrifyingly smart calculating predators a shift which undermines the stability the enclave claims. In some ways this is a book of two halves as the story development leads Deuce and Fade "topside" and out of the tunnels, revealing the reasons behind the downfall of society and more about Fade's past. The storyline flows through the location change and the ending leaves Deuce and Fade ready to continue their adventures.All in all, this was a great read and I'm really looking forward to  Outpost .Plot: 10/10Characters: 10/10Ending: 10/10Enjoyment: 10/10Cover: 9/10Overall: 49/50 Outpost

Good fun book, want to read next instalment so a good sign. Good characters and an easy read for the train.

I loved this book however did find myself feeling quite depressed due to the harsh situations the main characters were placed into throughout the story. Saying that though I couldn't put the book down. I really enjoyed the story line and the characters of Deuce, Fade and Stalker were well developed. The danger they faced mixed in with the odd sexual / romantic encounter gave the story a richness and intrigue. I am looking forward to the next book.