Review: Redworld

Title: Redworld
Author: A.L. Collins
Genre: Middle Grade
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Source: NetGalley
Release Date: February 1, 2018
Rating: ★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Belle Song and her family are aliens on a new world. The Songs came to Mars to seek a new life, but living on the red planet isn’t easy. The land is rough. The people are strange. The weather is unpredictable, and water is always in short supply. However, adventure is never far away. Belle adapts to her new life on Mars, faces dangerous Water Raiders, explores wondrous ancient sites, and has other amazing adventures on Redworld. From the rich imagination of author A.L. Collins comes a fantastic sci-fi western story of growing up on the Martian plains.

Review:

This was a unique middle grade story about life on Mars.

While I was reading this story, I was reminded of the book The Martian. That’s the only book I’ve read that is set on another planet. However, in this story, Mars has already been colonized and humans have lived there for many years.

It was interesting to see the different alien races that also lived on Mars. The segregation between the aliens was a lot like race segregation in the real world. Belle’s friend, Ta’al is of the Nubian race. She has to go through separate entrances, and she is completely ignored by everyone else at school. Belle questions why this is, which demonstrates that she is an intelligent girl.

This book is separated into four parts. Each of these parts was originally published as a separate book. This is a little confusing at first, because the characters are reintroduced at the beginning of each part. My least favourite part was the first one. It was an introduction to the characters and setting, but I found it anticlimactic. The following parts had more solid storylines with lots of tension, so I enjoyed them more.

This book is great for kids who are interested in life in space.

Author: jilljemmett

Jill lives in Toronto, Canada. She has studied English, Creative Writing, and Publishing. Jill is the creator and content producer of Jill’s Book Blog, where she has published a blog post every day for the last four years, including 5-7 book reviews a week. She can usually be found with her nose in a book. View all posts by jilljemmett