I'll start off with saying that this book was good...but not good enough. Upon reading the first book in the Dustlands Trilogy, the Costa Book Award winner Blood Red Road, I had been left feeling slightly worried as to how the sequel would top it, for Blood Red Road had been a truly amazing read and I had thoroughly enjoyed it. Needless to say I was excited for Rebel Heart to come out so I could once again join Saba, the fearless female fighter, on her fast-paced adventures.

I faced a few problems whilst reading Rebel Heart, unfortunately. Firstly, the title. I cannot help but constantly compare this book to its predecessor! "Blood Red Road" is an intriguing and exciting title for a book - and then you get "Rebel Heart", which personally, seems really cringey and a bit cliched.

Apart from this, I felt that Saba in this book was not the ruthless and brave Angel of Death that we had seen in Blood Red Road. I felt she was a completely different person, moaning a lot more and generally being a pretty depressed character - not like the determined and stubborn fighter I had grown to love.

In Rebel Heart, Saba and her brother Lugh have been reunited but Jack, the mysterious man who intrigued us as readers, has left Saba and is headed for The Lost Cause, before hoping to meet Saba later when he journeys on to the west side. All the while, Saba seems to be falling apart completely and breaks away from Lugh, her sister Emmi, and her friend Tommo.

One positive aspect of the book is that the relationship between Lugh and Saba is a lot more realistic and the whole idea of them not surviving without each other quickly fades away. Then Saba experiences hauntings by the ghosts of her pasts, the people she killed in the first book, and feels she cannot cope, without Jack. Hence the story quickly, and to my frustration, turns into a race against time to reunite with Jack, Saba's love. I was a bit disappointed with how the reader is convinced into believing that a focal point of the plot is the issue of the ghosts, and then this problem gets quickly resolved, and becomes nothing more than a mere distraction.

The story is pretty slow paced and most annoying of all is how it very quickly turns into a Twilight-style plot, in my opinion, with Saba becoming caught up in a love triangle consisting of Jack, Tommo (who I swear was a young child in the first book), and DeMalo, the supposed enemy in Rebel Heart. The problem isn't the romance itself, it's the fact that there simply aren't enough moments to develop the existing romance between Saba and Jack, and then other characters come into the picture and muddle it all up! However, I appreciate how Young, in this sequel, gave Tommo and Emmi a chance to feature more and I still enjoyed reading speech-style narrative, as it is a very unique way of writing a book, and it was certainly a lot easier to adjust to it the second time round! And besides, there are some exciting parts in the book, such as when Saba meets cannibals riding on giant ostriches!

In general, it was a good read and a decent follow-on from Young's amazing debut, but that's all it was - good. The last quarter of Rebel Heart is my favourite part, wrapping up the story nicely, yet at the same time, allowing the next book to pick up easily. I'm interested to see how the story will pick up in the final book and how all the unresolved issues in the book will get cleared up.

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