Arena 1

Book 1 in the Survival Trilogy

By: Morgan Rice

Narrated by: Emily Gittelman

Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

New York. 2120. America has been decimated, wiped out from the second Civil War. In this post-apocalyptic world, survivors are far and few between. And most of those who do survive are members of the violent gangs, predators who live in the big cities. They patrol the countryside looking for slaves, for fresh victims to bring back into the city for their favorite death sport: Arena One. The death stadium where opponents are made to fight to the death, in the most barbaric of ways. There is only one rule to the arena: no one survives. Ever. 

Deep in the wilderness, high up in the Catskill Mountains, 17-year-old Brooke Moore manages to survive, hiding out with her younger sister, Bree. They are careful to avoid the gangs of slaverunners who patrol the countryside. But one day, Brooke is not as careful as she can be, and Bree is captured. The slaverunners take her away, heading to the city, and to what will be a certain death. 

Brooke, a Marine’s daughter, was raised to be tough, to never back down from a fight. When her sister is taken, Brooke mobilizes, uses everything at her disposal to chase down the slaverunners and get her sister back. Along the way she runs into Ben, 17, another survivor like her, whose brother was taken. Together, they team up on their rescue mission. 

What follows is a post-apocalyptic, action-packed thriller, as the two of them pursue the slaverunners on the most dangerous ride of their lives, following them deep into the heart of New York. Along the way, if they are to survive, they will have to make some of the hardest choices and sacrifices of their lives, encountering obstacles neither of them had expected - including their unexpected feelings for each other. Will they rescue their siblings? Will they make it back? And will they, themselves, have to fight in the arena?

©2016 Morgan Rice (P)2019 Morgan Rice

Our 2nd Civil War

This book is targeted toward young adults. I am really like the main character. She is gutsy and a good survivalist. I felt it had a little too much description in it of the incidentals in the story but otherwise a good read.

ugh

Stick a spoon in my eye, would you? I made it to chapter four before bailing. Next book in my library please.

Suddenly

This book has a good idea for a dystopian thriller but falls flat because of the authors repetitive writing. Really could have used a thesaurus for the word suddenly and every unit of measure is 50 yards. It really made me feel like I wasn’t progressing because it constantly felt like more of the same.

The narrator doesn’t break any life to the characters and they all end up sounding like they’re parts of the main character.

I really tried to give it a chance but couldn’t get beyond these glaring issues and was just waiting for it to be over. I did finish it but to no satisfaction.

Soooo many plot holes

Aside from the main character being an expert on everything at such a young age (knife throwing, gun accuracy, riding a motorcycle, driving a stick shift, fighting, driving a boat), she claims to have not been in contact with anyone for the past 3 years, but still knows about the slave runners, the Arena and several other things that she never explains how she knows. Additionally, I think the author had a stroke 4/5’s into the book as the characters get captured, the main character feints and then they wake up and continue the story as if they were never captured and never refer to it again. I struggled through this book hoping any of these plot holes would be filled, but to no avail. I won’t be continuing the trilogy just for my own logical sanity