Rook By Sharon Cameron: Dystopian Superheroes!!

Rook by Sharon Cameron

Let’s talk dystopian real quick before we get into Rook. I know that it’s a pretty popular genre in YA, though goodness knows why. I’ve never been a fan of the ‘everything is awful’ and ‘there is absolutely no hope in ever’ kind of atmosphere. It’s just a bit too depressing.  

               But this is the kind of dystopian I like. Hundreds of years after modern civilization has been destroyed. The world has mostly recovered but the leftovers of the previous society are both archaeological artifacts and usually some kind of plot points. 

I love these kind of dystopia’s.  The still have the creepy atmosphere with modern day buildings standing about in disrepair but they’re usually a bit less gloom and doom.

               Several books I’ve read have made use of this genre. Tomorrow’s magic by Pamela F. Service stands out at the moment. 

    Rook, nailed this version of the genre. And it was brilliant. So here is a list of its brilliance.

• ·        It’s set in France! And guess what’s happening in France. A revolution. Who would have thought? Basically this means much riots and mobs and terrified nobles and of course the famous guillotine. Though it’s called the Razor because you know all of history has been wiped out so these revolutionist can’t even check to see if this is a good idea. (hint: it’s not) 

• ·        France is as usual kind of dysfunctional:  Not only are they killing people daily with their guillotine/razor they also have a scary government. Yeah you can never get completely away from that trope I guess. So these people ban all technology (because that’s what brought down the fall of the ancients their dependence of technology not you know, a shift in the poles, or maybe the satellites falling from the sky?) Essentially they’re stuck in the land of printing presses and no cars. But it’s hinted that the other countries have no such ban so I guess they’re just better at pulling themselves back together.

• ·        It’s basically about dystopian superheroes:  

 Sophia (our bonnie lass who fights crime with grumping and sarcasm) takes it upon herself to free people from the super scary prison before they get their heads separated from their necks. She then passively aggressively leaves a rook feather dipped in red paint in their empty cells. See this is why dystopian is cool. Because in a story sense all it calls for is scary government and fall of society so it can be pared with pretty much any other genre. ‘Here have some romance with that dystopian,’ or ‘how about some dragons too,’ it’s truly the most underrated trait of the genre.  

• ·        The oppressively theocratic government is not an everyday religion: I know that not everybody does this and most don’t do it to be insulting (at least I assume they aren’t) but some dystopian that are involved in any way with religion usually single out some religion like Christianity or anything else really and paint it in the worst light. I know it is part of history, large groups of religious people abusing their power, but using real religions feels kind of mean most of the time. So thank you Rook for just making up a Fate worshiping religion and not dragging modern day politics into the narrative. I tip my hat too you.

So that’s the awesome things and before we get to the less awesome things let’s look at the characters.

Sophia: She’s the typical dystopian strong female character. And that’s not to say that she was a bad character by any means but she is one that I’ve seen many times. Still I didn’t dislike her. She had some great moments and she always did the ‘right thing’ and ended up in worse trouble for it. So at least I wasn’t railing at her for being a complete moron every five minutes. She also had some great moments that made me want to shout with happiness. (this is one of those books that I actually demand a movie for)

Tom: he’s Sophia’s brother and he is definitely my favorite. He’s an Archaeologist! 

Always digging up random bits of plastic and trying to figure out how it works or what it was used for.  He broke his leg at some point and is job is basically to limp around grumpily and teach Sophia how to sword fight.

René: He’s kind of betrothed to Sophia. I say kind of because they’re basically doing it for money reasons (and blackmail but that’s later). René basically has two sides. The first is his actual self. He’s basically a sly little fox who enjoys making devious plans to blow things up. The second is the one he pretends to be around people he is trying to con. It’s this overly pompous and obnoxious lord who drives everybody mad, especially Sophia.

Spear: He’s a body guard? I think. I really have no idea who Spear is. He kind of hangs out with Sophia and helps her rescue people.

So now that I’ve flailed about the characters it’s time for the dislikes.

• ·        It’s a love triangle: 

•          I’d probably be a bit more annoyed with this if I was actually sure if it was a love triangle. Basically René and Sophia make lovey dovey eyes at each other while Spear moans in the background about how Sophia would love him if René had just stayed away. I didn’t get it. Frankly I didn’t even know that Spear was even in that age range. When he came on I imagined him as an older person but okay
• ·        The middle was a bit boring:  They were basically hiding out on a farm trying to make plans to bust people out of prison. But it was really there to develop René and Sophia’s relationship

Basically the entire premise of Rook was brilliant and I will shake it in the air until more dystopian writers notice it. There are other ways to depict the fall of society guys. In other words, stop making cheap rip offs of Hunger Games and Divergent it’s getting a bit old.