“What happens to you changes you. Fer good or ill, yer changed ferever. There ain't no goin back. No matter how many tears you cry.”

I LOVED Moria Young's debut novel, Blood Red Road, so I was super excited to read the sequel in this planned trilogy, Rebel Heart which just landed on the shelves this month.  I finished it a few nights ago and am still in the process of forming an opinon of it.  I gotta say, I'm feeling somewhat disappointed.  I find that with sequels I often have one of two reactions: 1) It is even better than the first book (ex: Catching Fire in my opinion), or, 2) It falls short of the first book.  Which is sadly what happened here. 

The books starts off on a high note.  We pick up right where we left off with Saba, Lugh, Emmi, and Tommo traveling west in hopes of a better life; Jack having left them to deliver the news of Ike's death to his sweetheart Molly.  There is a lot of interesting things going on with these people. Saba and her subconscious as her guilt over Epona's death (and many others) catch up with her.  The reader is also left wondering what is going on with Lugh; what really happened to him during his captivity and why is he having such extreme mood swings?  The character of Emmi is also becoming more intersting as we see her developing even more into a strong willed young woman.  We also see the side story of Tommo's developing feelings for Saba.  Most interesting is trying to figure out who exactly Jack is and what side is he on?

So clearly there is a lot happening here so I should be jumping up and down with excitement.  And I will admit, I was loving parts of this novel.  However, I really am not sure how I'm feeling about a side story that Young brought in halfway through the novel (and clearly is going to be a big plot point in the next book) involving the former Tonton leader, DeMalo.  It just felt somewhat out of place to the rest of the story as well as how out of character for some.  I don't want to give to much away for those of you who haven't read this yet so I will leave it at that!  I think I might need to reread this in a few months and see if a second reading changes my mind.  Despite everything I'm still really looking forward to the third book since I'm interested to see how Young ties up everything.