Feast of Ashes – Book Review

Wow! The first remark that sprang out of my mind as I finished reading Victoria Williamson’s debut YA novel: Feast of Ashes. It took me 3 days to finish this 300 page work of art and my heart is both peaceful and aching now that I’ve closed the book. I’m so happy about getting to read this book that I’m actually publishing my review a whole two weeks ahead of my promised date. Thank you to @the_writereads and the author for sending me an advance e-copy of this wonderful book.

The last time I read a YA novel was exactly a decade ago. I’m not much of a fan of this genre at all. I’m ashamed to say that sometimes I even make an active effort to ignore or avoid YA fantasy altogether. But this time, my first time reviewing books with @the_writereads, something about the title of this book made me go for it and I started reading the book right away, as soon as I recieved it.

This book is about a teenage African girl who is brave, level-headed, protective and strong no matter what life throws at her and her friends and family. The story is set a century ahead of us, inside a place that seems perfect with the best this world seemingly has to offer. Adina, her little sister Tash and her childhood friend Dejen lead undisturbed lives inside the dome and they could’ve gone on if not for their curious minds with endless questions and a will to never stop until they found answers. I think it’s only fair to say that it was their curiosity that almost killed them. And then there’s the old man who once acted upon those adventurous impulses and left the dome into the barren wastelands where a once perfect world resembling what’s inside the dome now, existed and had lost his mind completely. There’s also Otienno, Adina’s boy crush and the little girl who tries to so desperately be Adina’s sister: Chiku. This story is the journey of this band of people, finding answers to questions that had always seemed to have no believable answer, prophecies that seemed to come true, an escape from the only place that existed in their worlds and running off into the wilderness, surviving, not giving up, fighting the demons, sacrificing themselves for others and uncovering truths they couldn’t even dream of. An incredible story with elements of science, workings of a teenage mind, survival and hope.

This story starts off like just any other novel. But with each page turn, you realise quickly, the presence of the plethora of different characters, the colours, the almost mechanical surroundings of the setting reveals themselves and before you know it you’ll be sunken deep into dystopia.

This story is about a preserve of normal life at all levels of biology that had faded away a century ago. It makes us really contemplate what would happen to us if our current world’s “what if”s actually turned in to affirmatives. This book made me feel a whole mix of emotions from start to finish; fear, anger, bereavement, resentment, regret, pain, sorrow, happiness, peace, hope, success and comfort. The main turning point in the story has been mapped to the genesis story, where eating the fruit made the first man’s eyes open to the truth where in this story, the journey of these kids to uncovering the truth about their world starts with picking a fruit. It was a nice touch.

I love that this story is very strong in its sense of science. Being a novice molecular biologist myself, having a possible threat of GMOs been exposed in this manner, explained so vividly and in a way even lay readers can digest is truly applaudable. This explores one issue about GMOs that people do worry about and makes our worst fears about GMOs come to life. The world that’s built in this story and the situations are so current, they all feel so possible and not like some far-fetched fairytale. It’s a raw tale of a group of youngsters and how they make their expedition through a bunch of lies towards the truth through a tiring journey through the valleys of death and danger. Adina is a hero. She is like this warrior princess. I wish I had her as my big sister. I love that all the science sounded true and accurate. Secondly, being born and bred in a third world country, this book seems even more hitting close to home because this kind of exploitation of the resources of developing countries is very much happening in the world right now due to corrupt politics. And I must commend the bravery of the author for centering her story on the sad and dark truth about a part of this planet inhabited by humans that is not known to the minds of those in the richer parts of the world. This is not some far away fantasy land that’s insane to build inside our minds rather I fear it’s what our real world is slowly turning into.

About the writing, one thing that makes this story so captivating is its narrative in first person. It also has very strong opening and ending lines in each chapter that makes it extremely difficult to put this book down. There’s such wonder, anticipation, curiosity and longing nestled into words in this tale and I’m going as far as to say that it’s at the level of a hardcore thriller. I think that’s what makes me, a reader who’s big on the mystery genre, a fan of this book. This story is so expressive in its way of depicting putting up emotional facades, burying our feelings, living with guilt and finally letting go. I love how real this book is despite being in the fantasy genre. This book made me go back to my teenage years when I was devouring Eva Ibbotson’s Journey to the river sea. This book satisfies the curiosity of the teenage minds while feeding it the right amounts of all other ingredients that makes them find a story appealing: unity, innocent love, responsibility, adventurism, belongingness and thrill to name a few. A very smart book indeed. A tale of resilience, acceptance, kindness, remorse and survival. I really hope there’s a sequel to this because Adina’s story can’t be over just yet. It just can’t.

I loved all the characters, how the secrets were revealed ever so patiently, having kept me on my toes all the while I read, how the layers of the personalities were unravelled to the reader – layer by layer, how teenagers confronted their issues, how even the subtlest emotions were expressed so carefully. This book might’ve just turned me into a YA fantasy fan. It’s truly a great read Victoria! Would recommend to any teenager who’s as curious as I was at their age about science and its many possibilities, its darkness and its light.