Rating: 3.25 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Five years ago, the females of every species in Yarn died. Since that time the kingdom has struggled to survive the devastating loss. The young king of Yarn, still a child but wise enough to know something must be done, decides to send a pair of trusted investigators to find out what happened. Blair is a battle-hardened warrior with a quietly understated intelligence and a knack for keeping his head when others lose theirs. Ren is a prickly, but brilliant scholar, who hopes to solve the mystery that threatens to cripple the kingdom and its existence.
Two others, Eli and Adon, join these men and together the quartet explores the dark reality of the world in which they now live. They are confronted by hatred, devastation, and increasingly violent amounts of danger. Though Blair and Ren begin to grow closer, any thoughts of a relationship must wait as they slowly unravel exactly what happened to the women of their world. The truths they discover threaten to destroy them all and what little remains of Yarn.
The general premise to Barren intrigued me from the start, but it was one of those books that got lost in the shuffle, as they so often do. So I was thrilled when Jay came up with this particular challenge because it was the perfect excuse to pull a couple books from the TBR pile. Barren can be summed up in a single word: bizarre. Now that doesn’t mean bad necessarily, but on more than one occasion I was left scratching my head. The entire book had the feel of video game play from World of Warcraft or Skyrim. And while that works well enough in the game world, it didn’t always translate here. The basic plot is strong and draws you in pretty quickly. There is an easy flow to the entire book, one that is only broken by the oddly jarring character names. Ren and Adon work in this fantastical world. Blair, Bob, and Eli don’t ring quite as true and this little quirk, which may be mine alone, often jerked me out of the action. While the overall plot is decent, the characters in Barren are often sidetracked by multiple quests, which is a word used far too often in this book. These quests become somewhat convoluted and time consuming and while they ultimately provide some answers to the questions Blair and Ren have, they don’t add much to the overall story. I think about 100 pages could have been trimmed without sacrificing the plot. This would have provided a much tighter storyline and given an overall boost to the pacing, which drags at times.
The characters in Barren are varied, each from different backgrounds but all of them unique in their own way. Ren and Blair aren’t exactly a natural fit as a couple, which is one of the things I appreciated about them. While I didn’t always buy into the passion they felt for one another, they worked as a couple overall and both were engaging and easy to connect with. Adon and Eli are not a couple but equally important to the story and though their personalities are slightly less distinct, they are still generally fleshed out and just as enjoyable as Ren and Blair. Normally when an author writes about a quartet, of either friends or lovers, someone always seems to get the short straw. But Hedley has done a great job of balancing out the strengths and weakness of each character and giving them their time to shine. This was a real strong point of Barren and it made some of the other, weaker areas seem more palatable.
I called Barren bizarre and I wish I could explain that more clearly. It is a fairly enjoyable book and parts of it work very well and seem inherently a part of the world Hedley created. But other parts, aside from occasionally being needless, don’t seem to fit at all. They almost feel like sections of another book that have been wedged unsuccessfully into Barren’s narrative. To try and describe this further risks spoiling aspects of the book and while they don’t completely undermine the plot, they do detract from it.
Barren isn’t a perfect book. The plot needs a serious culling to remove useless and too lengthy scenes and there are some odd portions of the book that don’t seem to mesh very well with the rest of the story. But it has several engaging characters and the basic plot is fairly interesting. So while Barren doesn’t work on every level, it is still a fun read and one that I would recommend to those of you who enjoy fantasy and an old-fashioned adventure tale.
This review is part of our September Reading Challenge Month for TBR Pile Week! Leave a relevant comment below and you will be entered to win this week’s fabulous prize of a loaded iPad Mini sponsored by Dreamspinner Press, as well as our amazing grand prize sponsored by Riptide Publishing. You can get more information on our Challenge Month here, and more details on TBR Pile week here. And be sure to check out our prize post for more about the awesome prizes!
Thanks for the review! I love fantasy books and had not heard of this one before. I like the premise, but sounds like it could use some strong editing. I think this would go on my maybe list for now.
Thanks for an interesting review! The premise does sound interesting enough – and reminds me of some equally bizarre (Polish?) movie I watched as a kid/young teen where all the men had become extinct somehow, all but one poor guy – but I’m fairly sure it’s not a book for me, for the reasons you already pointed out and because this sort of fantasy isn’t quite my thing. But I do wonder if they ever found out what had happened to the women. The feminist in me also hope that if they found out, perhaps if they even found some women still alive and well that the end is not a misogynistic one, but the contrary.I like to see strong positive female portraits in all fiction, also m/m.
A very interesting review, Sue. After reading it, I have mixed feelings about Barren: On the one side, it seems the kind of fantasy book I would love, with a new world and several quests to fulfil. But I infer from to review that there is too much world building and little action going on, and that normally leaves me quite unsatisfied. I really love it when action and world building flow smoothly together, in a balance which can be easily broken if one of them grows to heavy. That’s why it is so difficult to find good fantasy books. Anyhow, I’ll leave Barren in my TBR list. It sounds interesting enough. Thank you for your review!
Once again, this isn’t my type book or genre. I know nothing about the author, but if she writes only this type fantasy, I know I’d never read her books.
It’s an intriguing concept (and I don’t know how I avoided hearing about it), though lately I have a real problem with books that have a lot of extraneous length. I don’t know if I’m reading too much, burned out, or just getting older, but I’m not as patient as I used to be!
I’m attracted to his book simply because of the out of the ordinary premise. My curiosity about why all the females have died would make this a likely read for me. I appreciate hearing about the pluses and minuses. And, yes, I think a name such as Bob would also throw me out of the story. Thanks for the review.
Thanks for the review. Fantasy books are a genre I would definitely want to read more of. I’ll check this one out further.
Based on your review, I don’t think this one is something I’d have much patience with. Thanks!
I get the feeling from the review that I might not actually enjoy the book, but at the same time all the video game talk makes me really intrigued…
This isn’t one I’ve heard about before, so I’m glad to at least get the chance to learn about it. I feel like I’m on the fence about this one, because I don’t mind bizarre, but I’m not happy to hear that there’s so much out of it that doesn’t really enhance the overall plot. However, sometimes I can really enjoy a book because of its characters and go happily with them as they do whatever they want. So, I’m not writing this one off and may end up giving it a go. Thanks, Sue!
I agree that characters can carry a bad book along way and while I wouldn’t consider Barren a bad book, the characters definitely helped!
It isn’t often that I hear someone use the word bizarre to describe a book. It sounds intriguing.
Another great review but dystopian books are definitely NOT my thing. So I’ll probably take a pass on picking this one up.
The story sounds good, but after reading the review twice I feel like I’ll probably give this one a pass. I had never heard of this one and if I had stopped reading the review after the description of the story I’m sure I would have looked it up to get it, but with the problems you described I’ll have to think about it a little longer. Thanks for the review. 🙂
I’ve never heard of this one. The premise definitely sounds interesting. Thanks for the thoughtful review!
My sister read this book and she really liked it. I’ve read plenty of LT3 books and know what to expect from their stories by now. Thank you for sharing your opinion on the book 🙂
Despite the problems, this sounds like the kind of book I enjoy. I love the alien world concept. I’ll have to add this one to the list. Thanks for the honest review!
This story still interests me, even if I’d never heard of it before today. “Bizarre” is something I can definitely go for at times. Although “Bob” makes me snicker a bit.
Interesting premise. I will have to think about this. I do like fantasy, but some of the issues you describe would get to me. Thanks for the review.
Thank you for the review! Wow, I just looked this one up and amazon and it is a long book!!! Long books are usually quite a selling point for me (if the story is good, I never want it to end), but it does sound like the length was partly an issue here. I liked your comparison to video game play. I love playing video games, but I think that structure in a book would be a major turn off for me. I envision to many side stories (quests) that I would get lost in and lose the major point or how it all ties together.
Hmmm the premise sounds good but if it reads like a video game it’s probably not for me. Thanks for the review though.
Good review, although it sounds like a dytopian society story. The storyline sounds like interesting, but the description leaves me second guessing checking this one out.
Hmm, I think this is the kind of dystopian book I never really felt worked for me. I know it’s a big genre but personally if it isn’t a contemporary the furthest I’m willing to go is fantasy, or light urban fantasy. But of course that it just me.