I am 28 years old at the moment, and I was a young adult when the young adult books like Divergent and Hunger Games came out.  There was something about that period in time, and something about those books,  that it transported you to a different world and made you think you could be the change you wanted to see.  C. A. Campbell sold me on Heresy by telling me it was a YA dystopian book, and I agreed to read it, not entirely sure what I was getting into, but hoping it didn’t suck.

It didn’t.

While reading this book I was transported back to the times where I was a teenager that stayed up until two in the morning reading a book I couldn’t get enough of.  The world that Campbell created was not only wonderful, but believable as well.  Arcadia is a world where following the rules will keep you alive, and disobeying the rules will have you labeled as a heretic with barely any chance for redemption.  And Shiloh, our heroine, is just trying to survive. 

When the book starts, we get this brief glimpse of Arcadia, and then we watch a character named Hope (I wonder if the pun was intended there) get brutally murdered because she refuses to comply with the rules of the world she lives in.  After she is murdered, there is a bombing of the stage which ultimately ends up bringing Jacob, our hero, and Shiloh together.

As I am sure you can predict, Shiloh and Jacob fall in love, and that love has struggles and reasons as to why they cannot be together.  Jacob is the counselors son, and she is a no good Haven girl (yes this is explained in the book, no I will not tell you, Yes, you will need to read the book).  And while this is a story that has been told time and time again (Gale and Katniss, Tris and Four) it actually feels like a fresh and wonderful story that you get drawn into.

As I sit here and try to think of things I disliked about this book, I really can only come up with one.  And the one thing I can come up with isn’t truly a dislike, but a plot point that didn’t quite make sense. As things progress in the book Shiloh and Jacob end up having to be secretive in their communications.  Now the world of Arcadia is a highly technological world.  Technology is prevalent, monitored, and used.  At the school Shiloh and Jacob attend, they wear bracelets at all times that monitor their whereabouts and alert the school officials if they are not where they are supposed to be, and each student is given a tablet that is also monitored for activity.  And yet, Jacob and Shiloh use these tablets to secretly talk to each other.  Granted, these secret communications are in person where they are typing things out, and then I am guessing deleting them.  BUT, it still doesn’t make sense that, that wasn’t being monitored as well.

Overall –  This was an incredibly good book that manages to tell a story I have read many times, while still making it feel fresh and new.  I loved that each character was incredibly different and had their own personality traits.  There wasn’t a single person that was relegated to your average side character.

Plot – 9/10

Characters – 10/10

Originality –  7/10

General Joy of Reading – 10/10

Overall Score – 36/40

HERESY: A Young Adult Dystopian Romance (The Heretics Saga Book 1) – C. A. Campbell

Cost* – eBook is $2.99 and Paperback is $10.99.  This book is included on kindle unlimited.

*Cost is based upon what the book cost when book review is published