Title: Glass Arrow
Author: Kristen Simmons
Publisher/Year:  Tom Doherty Associates 2/10/15
Length:   336 Pages

Overview

Once there was a time when men and women lived as equals, when girl babies were valued, and women could belong only to themselves. But that was ten generations ago. Now women are property, to be sold and owned and bred, while a strict census keeps their numbers manageable and under control. The best any girl can hope for is to end up as some man’s forever wife, but most are simply sold and resold until they’re all used up.

Only in the wilderness, away from the city, can true freedom be found. Aya has spent her whole life in the mountains, looking out for her family and hiding from the world, until the day the Trackers finally catch her.

Stolen from her home, and being groomed for auction, Aya is desperate to escape her fate and return to her family, but her only allies are a loyal wolf she’s raised from a pup and a strange mute boy who may be her best hope for freedom . . . if she can truly trust him.

My Thoughts

I have to say that it’s fairly impressive how much diversity Ms Simmons has in what she writes about.  While there were bits and pieces of Metaltown that i could tie back to Article 5 (not a lot but a few), Glass Arrow was quite different.

In this story, it’s not so much a coming of age story which is what we often get in stories that seem to be dystopian and taking place in the future.  this instead is just a basic story of survival and discovering your roots.  We meet our main character Aya when she’s running for her life to save her family as they are being hunted.  The story takes place in a time where young women are valued as there is a shortage of women who are fertile and women who are able to bear  son.  Aya has been living outside the city walls, where she’s been able to avoid any of the manufactured ‘stuff’ that seems to be a cause of this issue, and therefore she’s even more valuable.

Our journey with her is that she’s trying to fight for her life and her freedom once she’s captured because she has to save her family from the same fate.  She tries to outwit her captors at ‘The Garden’ at every turn and while she does that, she befriends a Driver, a boy who doesn’t talk and has links to the outside world.

The story from there really goes on a quest of who to trust and who’s going to help her find freedom.  and what’s the cost.  who’s going to stay locked up, who’s going to be free, who will survive.  What secrets will be uncovered throughout this.

We see interesting ‘friendships’ come up with it all, and we see the way that Aya’s past comes to greet her present.  All in all, not terribly deep in reading, but a sweet story no less.  The ending is fitting if nothing else.  Enjoy!