Twelve years ago, a global pandemic known as the Job virus decimated the world’s population. One city withstood the virus by going into lockdown during the early days of the pandemic and erecting a massive barricade wall to insulate themselves from the sick and the dying. Now called Vita Nova—meaning New Life—the city is overcrowded and its resources are quickly dwindling. The area outside the wall, known as the Unregulated Zone, is a vast wasteland filled with crumbling buildings, overgrown highways, and the Lawless: brutal bands of marauders intent on breeching the barricade and claiming the city’s resources for themselves.
To combat the problem of overcrowding, the leadership of Vita Nova has implemented two programs: The Compulsory Program, which requires that anyone over the age of sixty—or anyone who requires medical treatment for a chronic illness—undergo a humane euthanization procedure. There is also the Volunteer Program, which offers residents the chance to be revered at a public ceremony and receive a Final Week of luxury, gifts, and praise...in exchange for giving up their lives for the good of all.
After losing her mother as a Compulsory, Kira Liebert became a volunteer advocate for Vita Nova. She works closely with the Volunteers, arranging their stay at Rolling Meadows, a lavish, country-club estate where Volunteers spend their last few days. She also fulfills any special requests they might have for their Final Week.
But when young, handsome Will Foster enters her office, wishing to end his life as a Volunteer, he has just one request for his Final Week.
He wants to spend it with Kira.
Unable to refuse the Volunteer’s last request, Kira gets swept into Will’s world, leaving everything she knows behind and going somewhere she never thought she’d go: beyond the barricade. With the end of Will’s Final Week rapidly approaching, Kira realizes that Vita Nova is not the utopian sanctuary she once thought it was.
And some people—the truly brave ones—will sacrifice everything to prove it.
REVERENCE is the first book in Raena Rood’s thrilling new faith-based dystopian series.
Blurb and book cover image from Goodreads. Link to book on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61218057-reverence?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=z4PGxPLIPz&rank=1
“For the good of all.”
Sounds nice, doesn’t it? ‘For the good of all’ might even sound Christian.
But, as Reverence so clearly demonstrates, it’s a selfish lie used to justify the murder of others.
Having read a dystopian novel by Raena Rood before, I knew she wouldn’t sugarcoat it and that she was a good writer. Thus, seeing that she had a new ARC available with a stunning book cover, I had the ebook sent to me through BookSiren. And it was exactly, nay, more than what I expected.
You know exactly what you’re getting into from the first chapter. It punches, and sets the tone for the world Kira lives in. A world where ‘Compulsories’ and ‘Volunteers’ are ‘sacrificed’ for the good of all. And where you may have life, but not a choice as to whether you get to keep it. A world where it is so tempting to think that death can equal life.
It is interesting to watch Kira come, slowly, to the realization of just what is happening. How wrong it is, covered up with ‘selflessness’ and ‘sacrifice.’
Now, I will be honest, I feel a bit betrayed by Will. I never expected him to SPOILER: pull a gun on Devlin and threaten him with it. I had him framed in my mind as… I don’t know, with an understanding of the commandment of forgiving your enemies. But, to his credit, he didn’t go through with it. END OF SPOILER However, he turned out alright in the end, and you’ve got to admire his guts.
Reverence is interesting to me in a different way than other dystopian books. A constant theme, of course, are the Compulsories, those who are forced to give up their lives if they live over 60 or have certain health conditions, and the Volunteers, those who get to live in luxury for a week before their Sacrifice.
It is a culture that, in the name of preserving life, encourages and honors death. Selfishness is covered up in the guise of selflessness.
This rings with me because it’s all over our culture right now. Words don’t mean what they used to anymore, they are perverted and twisted.
Like this phrase, ‘For the good of all’. The question is, who’s ‘all’? The hearer of it automatically assumes it means ‘for me’ but how often is that actually the case? As the pandemic proved, it’s often not for the good of the people.
Which is why we need to ‘stay awake’. And those who read this book will understand why I said that 😉
Now, as for the faith element, it wasn’t as strong in this book as in others that I’ve read of Raena Rood’s. But it is there, and I’m thinking that it will come out more strongly later on in the series. It is definitely a clean read, but an intense one, and I’d mark it for ages 16 and up.
So, that is my review of this insightful dystopian book! And if you like that genre, or just Christian fiction that won’t gloss over things, I recommend it.
Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and are not influenced by this.
Link to Author Profile on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20135252.Raena_Rood
Website: https://raenajrood.com/
Until the next review,
Abby