Blog Tour & Review: Feuds by Avery Hastings

Hello! Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Feuds by Avery Hastings! This tour is hosted by the lovely Paper Lantern Lit and I'm so excited to be a part of it! 

"Avery Hastings is an author and former book editor from New York City. Avery grew up in Ohio, graduated in 2006 from the University of Notre Dame and earned her MFA from the New School in 2008. When she's not reading or writing, Avery can usually be spotted lying around in the park with her affable dog. Like her protagonists, she knows how to throw a powerful right hook and once dreamed of becoming a ballerina. In addition to New York, Avery has recently lived in Mumbai and Paris, but is happy to call Brooklyn home (for now)."

  Find Avery on:  

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FEUDS

Release Date: September 2, 2014

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin   
Pages: 272
Source: eARC for Review

ISBN-10:  125005771X

Rating: 3.5 Hearts

Book Description

"For Davis Morrow, perfection is a daily reality. Like all Priors, Davis has spent her whole life primed to be smarter, stronger, and more graceful than the lowly Imperfects, or “Imps.” A fiercely ambitious ballerina, Davis is only a few weeks away from qualifying for the Olympiads and finally living up to her mother’s legacy when she meets Cole, a mysterious boy who leaves her with more questions each time he disappears.

Davis has no idea that Cole has his own agenda, or that he’s a rising star in the FEUDS, an underground fighting ring where Priors gamble on Imps. Cole has every reason to hate Davis—her father’s campaign hinges on the total segregation of the Imps and Priors—but despite his best efforts, Cole finds himself as drawn to Davis as she is to him.

Then Narxis, a deadly virus, takes its hold--and Davis’s friends start dying. When the Priors refuse to acknowledge the epidemic, Davis has no one to turn to but Cole. Falling in love was never part of their plan, but their love may be the only thing that can save her world...in Avery Hastings's Feuds."

Review

Short and Sweet:

  Feuds is a dystopian romance with a Romeo and Juliet flare for the dramatic in both its love story and its politics.

To Elaborate...

The first half of Feuds left me a bit lukewarm to the story. Davis and Cole are super different from one another in social status, but similar in character: both are driven and goal oriented, both are a bit naive, and each is living out their lives for their families/parents to some extent. I imagine that this contributes to the instalove they feel for each other. They take all of that determination and obsession and redirect it towards each other. 

Honestly, I was bit thrown off the story initially because I found it abrupt and lusty, especially since Cole mentions Davis' appearance more than anything else. However, after a long period of time where Davis and Cole essentially angst for one another, we finally get to see a bit more about this world and why they may be so desperate to grasp for love where they can find it.

Davis has simply never felt that 'spark' for a boy before, so this is her first experience with hormones and she spends a lot of time internally working out these new 'feelings.' However, Cole meets Davis with ulterior motives. Motives that he quickly abandons once he begins having feelings towards her, but as a result there is a lot of relational dishonesty on his part. Overall, the romance is a bit messy. And to make matters even more complicated, a relationship between them is illegal. She's a genetically modified, 'superior' Prior and Cole is an Imp (really rude name for regular 'ugly' folks). But Davis doesn't know that Cole is an Imp, because he's an IMPoster parading around like a Prior! (See what I did there... *snort*) So in a sense, he knowingly endangers her without her consent. I spent quite a lot of time feeling grouchy at Cole, but later in the story I felt like he redeemed himself by making her safety a bigger priority.

While all of this is going on, the world building is falling a bit behind. By the time it catches up to the love story the book is half over. I really did love the concept of these 'perfect' humans covering up a disease that they shouldn't be experiencing and I wanted to see more of that 'government cover-up' side of it all. Why are they hiding an epidemic? Who is benefiting from keeping it a secret? How were they keeping the families quiet? Wondering who's going to get sick and disappear next created a very dark and twisty sense of despair and tension, but I will definitely be looking for more answers to these questions in the next book. 

Overall, this story wasn't my favorite, but I was entertained throughout and I'm curious to see what happens next in Avery Hastings' corrupt and dangerous world.

3.5 Hearts!

   
In Stores September 2, 2014!

  

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