Clemloves

A little bit of everything

Saturday 30 July 2016

The Race by Nina Allan | Book Review


It's the weekend! I hope you have a lovely day. My weekend is going to be spent reading, (yes, lots of reading,) Netflix and sleeping! If you haven't already checked out Thursday's book review, I am also doing a giveaway. Click here to check it out and enter. You can win a copy of How Not To Disappear by Clare Furniss. I also have another new book review that went live on my blog, click here to view it. I reviewed Because We Are Bad by Lily Bailey.

Today's book is called The Race by Nina Allen. Nina, who is based in Devon has won the BSFA award for short fiction, the prestigious grand prix l'Imaginaire and the Aeon Award. Nina has also been shortlisted for the British Fantasy award four times. The Race is her first novel and is out now.





The Race takes us on a journey and explores identity, home and our place in the world. This book also takes us to a future version of England. Being a fan of science-fiction, as soon as I read the summary of this book, I was very interested and wanted to read it. 

"In a future scarred by fracking and ecological collapse, Jenna Hoolman lives in the coastal town of Sapphire. Her world is dominated by the illegal sport of smartdog racing: greyhounds genetically modified with human DNA. When her young niece goes missing that world implodes...

Christy’s life is dominated by fear of her brother, a man she knows capable of monstrous acts and suspects of hiding even darker ones. Desperate to learn the truth she contacts Alex, a stranger she knows only by name, and who has his own demons to fight...

And Maree, a young woman undertaking a journey that will change her world forever."

The Race is very-well written and Nina is a brilliant author. From the beginning of the book, I wanted to know more, and go on a journey with the characters. The book is futuristic and shows us a very different version of Earth. There are four main characters within this book, they are, Jenna, Christy, Alex and Maree. This book is kind of separated into four parts which include each of these four characters, but each are very closely connected. 

The beginning of this book starts with Jenna. Jenna starts to explain about certain events that has happened in her life. Along with Jenna we get to read about the other characters pasts and get to learn and know them better. Each character within the book has been and goes through different real-life situations. The places within the book are described and shown how much they have changed. 

As you may have seen from the summary of the book above, Smartdog racing is a main part of the story. Humans are now able to communicate/feel thoughts with the greyhounds. This adds something very new and different to the book. The humans that are connected to the dogs, are called runners.

One last thing about this book I want to talk about is the front cover, (as you know I love a good front cover!) I like the image that has been used for the cover of this book and it fits well to the story. Brilliantly written, this is a great first novel by Nina Allen. 


Have you read The Race by Nina Allan?






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