Review: The Outside

The Outside by Laura Bickle

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Book Info: Genre: Post-apocalyptic/Dystopian
Reading Level: Young Adult
Recommended for: those who enjoyed the first book, those who enjoy dystopian books.
Book Available: September 3, 2013 in hardcover and Kindle editions
Trigger Warnings: Violence, killing, treachery, premarital sex

My Thoughts: I was really bothered by the cover on this book. The advantage to e-books (or one of them) is that I don't often notice covers, so when I have a physical book with a jarringly discontinuous cover, it makes me even crazier than normal. One of the things about which Katie dreamed while she planned for Rumspringa was the opportunity to wear trousers. She is also a very sensible girl. If she broke with Amish traditions enough upon her leaving, she would not be wearing a fancy dress like she has on the cover, and which exposes her arms and legs. She would likely be wearing trousers. She would also be wearing warmer clothing, since it was late in the year at the end of the previous books. Additionally, her hair is way off on the cover. My understanding of Amish traditions is that the women don't cut their hair, so it should be much longer if she had left it. If she were to cut her hair, it would undoubtedly be much shorter than this (again, she's sensible) so that it would be easy for her to care for it. This cover does not at all mesh with the girl that we learned about in the first book. Also, what are those weird boots she is wearing? Not at all sensible. All these things were confirmed in this book. Katie had never cut her hair. The time when she was Outside she mostly wore her Amish clothing, or as similar as possible. I realized what bothered me so much about the dress she is wearing on the cover: it looks like something a Baptist would wear. It's completely wrong.

Anyway, that truly is neither here nor there, but I did post a long rant about the cover after I received the book, so I thought I should address that. The cover was not enough to justify lowering my rating. Based on this this book ends, I believe there will not be any more. There might be, but this one ends very well and seems to wrap almost everything up, so, I just don't know. I really enjoyed this book. It's as much a journey of discovery for Katie as it is anything, with a few fight scenes to spice things up. Her character develops nicely, and we learn a bit more about Alex, too. All in all, it was a great book. If you like dystopian YA fiction, if you liked the first book, you won't want to miss this one, horrible cover and all. I'm not sure how realistic the science is, but I thought it was an interesting solution, and I did enjoy the scientific explanations for holy ground. I do with they'd come up with an explanation for running water, but we can't have anything.

Series Information: The Hallowed Ones series
Book 1: The Hallowed Ones, review linked here where formatting allowed
Book 2: The Outside, available September 3, 2013

Disclosure: I received a paperback ARC from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis: After a plague of vampires is unleashed in the world, Katie is kicked out of her Amish community for her refusal to adhere to the new rules of survival. Now in exile, she enters an outside world of unspeakable violence with only her two “English” friends and a horse by her side. Together they seek answers and other survivors—but each sunset brings the threat of vampire attack, and each sunrise the threat of starvation.

And yet through this darkness come the shining ones: luminescent men and women with the power to deflect vampires and survive the night. But can these new people be trusted, and are they even people at all?



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