
In a post-apocalyptic future, fifteen-year-old Deuce, a loyal Huntress, brings back meat while avoiding the Freaks outside her enclave. When she is partnered with the mysterious outsider, Fade, she begins to see that the strict ways of the elders may be wrong and dangerous. The story follows Deuce and Fade as they navigate the dangers of their world, facing challenges, forming unexpected alliances, and questioning the society they live in while trying to survive in a dark and treacherous environment.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include themes of violence, death, abuse, and discussions of rape.
Has Romance?
There is a medium level of romance in the story, primarily involving Deuce and Fade.
From The Publisher:
Ann Aguirre's thrilling young adult novel Enclave is the story of two young people in an apocalyptic world-facing dangers, and feelings, unlike any they've ever known.
New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20's. When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters-or Freaks-who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings. And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight-guided by Fade's long-ago memories-in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs.
Ratings (23)
Incredible (4) | |
Loved It (8) | |
Liked It (7) | |
It Was OK (2) | |
Did Not Like (2) |
Reader Stats (67):
Read It (25) | |
Want To Read (28) | |
Did Not Finish (1) | |
Not Interested (13) |
5 comment(s)
It was rather decent in the beginning not great but an okay read, but then I got bored with the story and wasn't engaged in the story. It wasn't my jam
My review, Alice-Style, can be viewed
here.
This was a fun start to a new series. I loved the details of the world, it felt so rich and realistic. Dystopia is always fascinating to me... I love reading about the kinds of societies that struggle together after the modern world crumbles to dust. Something about modern people being reduced to an almost medieval lifestyle is just really fascinating.
Though I wish Aguirre had been less of a miser with some details. What happened?
We are given indications of a virus... a generation nearly wiped out, sickness a constant fear, and that brief glimpse of a heading indicating that the CDC has failed to develop a vaccine. But who are the Freaks? They eat the dead. The Topsiders called them Muties. How did the virus cause this? Why do they seem to be evolving?
I imagine these details will unfold as the series progresses, but I am greedy, I want to know now!
The one thing I struggled with, which I tend to really struggle with in YA, is the relationship building. The immaturity of the characters tends to be frustrating, as they try and understand the complicated emotions in a budding relationship. That frustration is generally accompanied by a fair bit of angst and melodrama (see: Fade's brooding over Deuce's cluelessness). I really would have liked for them to figure SOMETHING out before the end of the book, make SOME progress there. Also
the triangle-vibe related to Stalker was mildly nauseating. He's not a good guy. He hunted them. He planned to rape Deuce. He headed up a gang that he allowed to gang-rape Tegan and other girls. I am not saying he can't change - I like complicated characters that evolve in a solid arc. But that kind of change - a change to his entire worldview - doesn't happen over the course of a couple days or weeks. He's dangerous, cold, calculating, and wouldn't risk himself to help them. He shouldn't even be contemplated as a possible pair to Deuce without some serious evolution to his character, and when the book teased that direction, I was irritated.
Anyway, I am definitely looking forward to reading onward in this series. When is the next one due out?
I'm a huge fan of Ann Aguirre's novels, and this is the latest of my perusal (or, inhalation) of her backlist. Aguirre is good at kick-ass heroines, moral shades of gray, and strong relationships between her characters - not just romantic, but platonic as well. I love what she does in
Enclave - after some sort of apocalyptic event, many humans have retreated to the tunnels below the city, where they create enclaves and trap rats to survive. Deuce has just joined the Hunter corp, tasked with patrolling the tunnels, collecting trapped meat, and killing any "Freaks" who come too close to the enclave. When events conspire to make Deuce question the strict way of life in the enclave, ostensibly to keep them all safe, she and her partner Fade are forced Topside to fend for themselves. There they find more people surviving in different ways.
For an Ann Aguirre novel, three stars is low for me. However, I just couldn't get over the love triangle thingie (it was loosely defined) between Deuce, Fade, and someone I won't spoil. That third person's actions would be hard to swallow in an adult novel, and in the "instant love" environment of a young adult novel, it was even weirder. It just didn't sit right with me.
I have a feeling Aguirre might blow me away with an answer to this conundrum in the sequel, but for now we're at three stars.
Definitely not for everyone, but I loved this series.
About the Author:
Ann Aguirre has been a clown, a clerk, a savior of stray kittens, and a voice actress, not necessarily in that order. She grew up in a yellow house across from a cornfield, but she now lives in a terracotta adobe house in Mexico with her husband and two adorable children. The post-apocalyptic novel Enclave is her first book for young adults. She also writes the romantic science fiction series about Sirantha Jax, starting with Grimspace, as well as urban fantasy and paranormal romance. As Ava Gray, she writes paranormal romantic suspense.
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