Blog Tour: Review & Giveaway Eden’s Root by Rachel E. Fisher

Welcome to the Tea, Daydreams & Fairytales tour stop of  Eden’s Root by Rachel Fisher hosted by ATomR Tours!

I absolutely love Dystopians, always have ever since reading The Chrysalids by John Wyndham in high school, so I was incredibly excited to have the opportunity to read and review this novel.

Book Details

Book: Eden’s Root
Author: Rachel Fisher
Series: Eden’s Root, Book #1
Genre: Post Apocalyptic, Dystopian
Age: Young Adult
Published: December 2011
Links: Goodreads | Amazon.com

Review

I’ve read a lot of Dystopians but Eden’s Root has to be one of the hardest I’ve read to date purely because of how very gritty and real this book is.  Unlike many Dystopians where you get a vague idea that at some point in the past something went horribly wrong leading to a completely different way of life and governing body, in Eden’s Root you are there from the beginning experiencing with the characters in a breaking and changing world.  The main character Fi by the tender age of 14 has already experienced some traumatizing life events including the death of her brother and father to cancers and also the knowledge that her mother is soon to join them.  The rise of cancers is attributed to all the modifications science has done over the decades to our food sources leading to the eventual loss of all new planatation in 2033 when Fi must help her family find the Eden complex in order to survive.  I have personally seen both my own mother and my father in law sucumb to cancer way before there time and this book hits frightenly close to home.

The actual world building was very well done, you really felt you were there and part of the chaos after the government involved the military and started to ration the food.  The only problem I had was that the actual story was just too long and could have done with some editing, especially in the early parts with Fi’s preparation and training.  This is a long book and it took me quite a while to get through the first third of the novel and I think this is one of the story’s biggest faults.

The characters are beautifully done. Fi is a great heroine even if she is only 13 at the start of the novel.  While at first I found it a bit hard to believe that she was incharge of her “family” including the adults after awhile I really did accept it, at the end of the day some people really are born leaders and Fi is one of these.  Now she really grows in this story partly because of her training and partly because of the changing world around her forcing her to tackle some real moral issues.  While I could imagine that some people would be irritated with her thoughts and reactions to events I thought that they rang quite true because at the end of the day regardless of how the world changes having to be involved in death, rape, pillage and all those other awful chaos activities would not be easy.

Sean irritated me a little bit, he was a bit too passive agressive for my tastes but I really liked the character of Asher.  Some reviews I’ve read has put both these guys in a love triangle with Fi but I never really saw any romantic connection between her and Sean.  But then Asher carries a sword around and is totally awesome so perhaps I was a little judgemental The family itself was nicely done if a little bit too lucky when it came to adding new members that just magically had skills the group could use.  I also wonder if it was realistic how well their rules and meetings would actually work in this situation – I think I would find it very hard to always take direction from a teenager personally and I’m not entirely sure if there wouldn’t be more tension in reality.

Overall even though it took me awhile to get into this story I really loved it and I think that anyone who enjoys Dystopians/Post Apocalyptic stories should add this to their to-read list – it’s a fascinating read!

A Personal Note/Rant:

While I’m too lazy to re-find links to support, it doesn’t surprise me that cancer is on the rise in our society today based on our diets of processed foods starting from birth with formulas instead of diets of breastmilk and whole unprocessed grains and vegetables.  I know when my mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer she was given a list of foods to avoid that contained preseratives known to cause the growth in this cancer – it amazed me how many foods that I ate every day were on this list including many deli meats such as ham and turkey!  I also read a study over the weekend that showed if all children in the US were breastfed for 2 years or more, that cancers would be cut by up to 25% just due to the benefits provided to both mother and baby – this type of information astounds me as it isn’t widely reported for fear of upsetting people and angering large corporations. In anycase if you are interested in the articles behind these statements let me know and I will hunt them down for you (along with probably a million others hahaha)

Rating

About the Author

I am a wife and entrepreneur living and working in Florida. Though I grew up in the northeast, I can’t give up the sunshine and beaches of my adoptive home. My work is fictional and would be classified as science-fiction because it is rooted in science, but it is not the typical with robots, space travel, or aliens. This particular story is focused on realistic worst-case scenarios because those are what I find most intriguing right now. Favorite pasttimes…mostly outdoorsy things, and overuse of ellipsis.

Website | Twitter| Facebook | Goodreads

Sequel Now Available!

Book Details

Book: Seeds of War
Author: Rachel Fisher
Series: Eden’s Root, Book #2
Genre: Post Apocalyptic, Dystopian
Age: Young Adult
Published: July 2012
Links: Goodreads | Amazon.com | Smashwords

Giveaway

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Disclosure

I received my copy of Eden’s Root in exchange for my honest opinion from the author for the ATOMR Book Tour.