Review: Nice start to the series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 15, 2014
3.5 stars, rounded up. Interesting first book in a series. Alternate universe society where poor children are sold into slavery. Bran, a young slave, is sent to the "slave breakers" because he keeps trying to run away. Without going into and spoiling the plot, this is really a coming of age story where with the help of a caring master, Bran learns about himself and how to survive as a slave.The writing is solid, and the book kept me interested and caring about the characters throughout. The characters were well drawn, and I enjoyed seeing Bran's growth throughout the story.The only reason I didn't give this a flat-out 4 stars was that it was missing world-building I thought would have helped to round out the characters. There were vacuums and automobiles mentioned, but then a character uses a chamber pot in his room, and I was left scratching my head. Very little about the city (?) town (?) the characters lived in, about how the characters lived other than the general references to marketplaces and the slave trade (and even this wasn't 100% clear to me). The world seemed two-dimensional. I had to refer back to our own Earth and assume that was the setting.That said, I'll be looking for the sequel and hoping for more context there.