Sovereign Review

Today I’m going to review Sovereign by: E.R. Arroyo.

Cori wasn’t born into the colony, but to a world where chemical warfare had reigned and destroyed most of America. At the age of seven, her father was killed by the savages, who were negatively affected by the toxins exposed to the world and they have gone insane to the point of cannibalism. At the same time her father bled to death, the colony, Antius, ‘rescued’ Cori, but she longs to be free and escape the rules and controlling nature of the colony.

This dystopian novel really gripped me and I couldn’t put it down. The characters were so amazing and I really loved to hate Nathan (the son of the colony’s leader). He made my skin crawl and he was just a great evil guy. I also really liked Dylan in this novel (the love interest). He was a genius and just the right amount of protective, but also he let Cori be herself, which meant he had to let her run head-long into danger because it was her nature.

This book had many twists and turns that kept me so intrigued. Even though it is part of a two-book series, I felt satisfied with it and almost considered waiting to read the second one. (I’m glad I did because I thought the second one was even better than the first.)

This book really felt like a mesh of a few other things that are out there right now, but it didn’t bother me at all because it was different enough. There were parts that felt like Divergent or the TV show The 100. I couldn’t stop envisioning the environment and some of the characters from The 100 when I read this, but it just made me enjoy it more since I have really liked that show. The savages I also imagined them to be kind of like the Reavers from Firefly. If none of those references mean anything to you, then you should not have a worry about feeling this book was inspired by multiple sources.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The action was intense. The romance was sweet. The main character, Cori was not quite like any character I’d seen in this genre. She was reminiscent of Tris from Divergent (when Tris stopped being weak/whinny) because she is tough and built to be a soldier, but she was different at the same time. From the very beginning, she was strong and wouldn’t let anyone break her. She broke the rule and wouldn’t let anyone get in her way to freedom. She was a survivor from the beginning, which was refreshing because so many of the main characters in this genre start out weaker and they have to adapt, which can sometimes make the things they do unrealistic.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. It’s so much deeper and better than the synopsis let on. The writing was great and grabbed me from the very first.