BLOG TOUR --- City of Beasts by Corrie Wang [Review + Giveaway]

Title: City of Beasts
Authors(s): Corrie Wang
Publication Date: September 17, 2019
Edition: Hardcover, ebook; 384 pgs
Publisher: Freeform
Source: Rockstar Book Tours
Buy: Amazon - Kindle - Barnes & Noble  - iBooks - Kobo - The Book Depository
Disclaimer: I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

Tour Schedule

Week One:

9/2/2019- Country Road Reviews- Excerpt

9/3/2019- Two Chicks on Books- Excerpt

9/4/2019- Character Madness and Musings- Excerpt

9/5/2019- Shelf-Rated- Review

9/6/2019- BookHounds YA- Review

Week Two:

9/9/2019- Lifestyle of Me- Review

9/10/2019- Daily Waffle - Excerpt

9/11/2019- A Dream Within A Dream- Review

9/12/2019- Life of a Simple Reader- Excerpt

9/13/2019- Here's to Happy Endings- Review

Week Three:

9/16/2019- Jena Brown Writes- Review

9/17/2019- Kati's Bookaholic Rambling Reviews- Excerpt

9/18/2019- Wishful Endings- Excerpt

9/19/2019- Book-Keeping- Review

9/20/2019- Jade Writes Books- Review

Week Four:

9/23/2019- Eli to the nth- Review

9/24/2019- two points of interest- Review

9/25/2019- The Layaway Dragon- Review

9/26/2019- Smada's Book Smack- Review

9/27/2019- PopTheButterfly Reads- Review

Week Five:
9/30/2019- lori's house of reviews- Review

The Summary

"If you see a beast, and you have the shot, don't hesitate. Kill it."

For seventeen years, fees have lived separate from beasts. The division of the sexes has kept their world peaceful. Glori Rhodes is like most other fees her age. She adores her neighborhood's abandoned Costco, can bench her body weight, and she knew twenty-seven beast counter attack moves by the time she was seven. She has never questioned the separation of the sexes or the rules that keep her post-nuclear hometown safe. But when her mother secretly gives birth to a baby beast, Glori grows to love the child and can't help wondering: What really is the difference between us and them?

When her brother, at the age of five, is snatched in a vicious raid, Glori and her best friend, Su, do the unthinkable - covertly infiltrate the City of Beasts to get him back. What's meant to be a smash-and-grab job quickly becomes the adventure of a lifetime as the fees team up with a fast-talking, T-shirt cannon wielding beast named Sway, and Glori starts to see that there's more to males, and her own history, than she's been taught. Glori, Sway, and a motley cohort of friends will go to the ends of the earth to find her little brother. And maybe save their divided world while they're at it.

(Goodreads)

My Review

This book is as timely as they come.  A dystopian set after a horrific nuclear disaster, where global warming has made the oceans rise that most Americans fled to the north, and where males and females live divided as enemies.  I don't know how far off this book will be if nothing changes in our world currently, not to start out too heavy here.

But the realism is what makes this such a page-turner. Oh, that and the characters, the setting, the dialogue...oh the whole book!  I absolutely adored it.  I couldn't put it down until the end (the end that's not quite an end, but any more would be spoilers).  Glori and Sway are my faves, hands down, no argument.  They're dynamic is killer, and both learn something from the other.  This is important in a book that could easily be all about hating the other.

The dialogue is very sharp, sprinkled with recognizable and purposeful slang, just different enough to feel like it developed organically within this world.  The use of the terms for female and male (always female and male -- not man and women, which is an important distinction because of sex vs. gender, which is blurred in this book) --- fees and nags and beasts and norms --- clearly show the opinion of each side of the divide.  And because they're are people alive from before the disaster struck, so there are references from our present mixed in.  This makes the book timely and timeless.

The two society's created are distinct and are a commentary on the two "perfect" societies, or at least desired societies that may be influenced by females and males; while it is clear that Wang leans toward the female camp, she does not paint a picture that males are the absolute worst.  There is balance in each, highlighting both the good and the bad of the two communities.

There is science galore; you can tell that Wang did her homework while writing to make the result of climate change and a nuclear holocaust as accurate as possible.  But the science doesn't detract, only enhances the story-telling.  This is ultimately a character piece, reflecting on what makes us human.  And I absolutely loved it.

City of Beasts by Corrie Wang is out in stores now!  Check out an excerpt from the book, and enter to win a copy below.  This is a must-read, and will go on your shelf right with The Hunger Games and Divergent when you're finished!

Final Rating

Excerpt

   Excerpt 1 City of Beasts by Jaime Arnold on Scribd

About the Author

Corrie Wang is passionate about libraries, recycling, and eating all the food, everywhere. Corrie grew up in Buffalo but spent her formative years in Brooklyn, where one of her last paying gigs was managing a three-story nightclub on the Lower East Side.

Writing to fix things that make her angry and explore things that frighten her, Corrie’s novels are about girls unapologetically conquering scenarios they should have little control over. Tired of seeing women and girls lose in this culture - spoiler - they never do in her stories.

Her debut novel, The Takedown was chosen as one of the best books of 2017 by the New York Public Library and a 2018 YALSA selection for Best Fiction for Young Adults. City of Beasts is her second novel.

Seeing, as Corrie wrote an entire novel about the freakiness and perils of socializing too much on the internets her existence there is haphazard at best. Now, more than ever, she feels it is time for everyone to look up. (Also, stand up, step up, and eat up. Woot!) That being said, you may follow her poor photography skillz on Instagram. AND P.S. Wang rhymes with 'song' y'all.

Website | Twitter  |Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

Giveaway

3 winners will receive finished copies of CITY OF BEASTS, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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