Orleans

With absolutely spectacular world-building, Orleans held me captive as I watched a post-apocalypse version of New Orleans unfold around me in vivid and careful detail; nothing was overlooked. I did find that I cared very little for the protagonist – Fen – and her tribe dialect. Though I understood her motives, I was much more interested in learning about Orleans and how it had come to be.

Fen is a very interesting, and refreshing, heroine in that she looks out for herself first, and does whatever is necessary in order to survive. At times, this means she considers abandoning Lydia’s baby, in order to save herself.

"I look down at Baby Girl, snuggled up against me. I want to run so bad, but she so tiny. Too tiny to hold the dogs off me for long. Then I close my eyes and feel hot all over, I’m so ashamed. Lydia ask me to look after her. I ain’t gonna throw her away."

And when she meets Daniel, she helps him only because of the help he can provide her. While her character arc does progress and we do see small changes in her self-preservation above all else instinct, by the end of Orleans, she is still a survivor who is determined to continue surviving. But while I couldn’t fault Fen for her will to survive, I also couldn’t connect with her. While I learned quite a bit about both Fen and Daniel’s histories, which explained how they had become who they were in Orleans, it did little to make me truly connect to either of them. Besides the unshakable and realistic truth that Fen was a survivor, I really wasn’t able to grasp her characterization because she kept herself so closed, which kept me from engaging completely. And while Daniel was much more open with his emotions, he was so useless that I couldn’t relate to him either.

Fortunately for Orleans, I didn’t need the characterization to be outstanding, because the city of Orleans was as much a living, breathing character as either Fen or Daniel. And Smith starts Orleans‘ characterization on page one: after a series of devastating hurricanes, which resulted in a lethal disease called the Fever, the Guld Coast was quarantined from the rest of the United States. In time, the quarantine turned into a full separation, as the United States withdrew its funding and support for the survivors living in Orleans, thinking they would die out and take their disease with them. With the Fever attacking blood types differently and in varying strengths, the survivors band together in blood-based tribes. With AB types being the most severely affected, they quickly become the most dangerous – attacking others to steal their blood, which helps to temporarily stave off the Fever.

And that’s just the threat from Orleans‘ inhabitants! As Fen travels with Daniel, we watch them travel across a mossy field with an entire city buried underneath, where pieces of the past float to the top during heavy rains. It also means certain spots might cave in if you’re not light enough on your feet. The landscape was as much a threat as any Blood Hunter, which made every move Fen and Daniel make suspenseful as you waited for Orleans‘ reaction.

With such a rich landscape and such an interesting character as Fen, Orleans is a dystopian for dystopian fans – fantastic world-building, a suspenseful plot and a heroine that makes decisions based on logic instead of her heart.

Move over Tris and Katniss, because Fen de la Guerre is ruling the dystopian scene.


I really hope this is the beginning of a series, because the final page left me breathless. I have to know more about what this future America is like. Sherri Smith did an amazing job creating a world within a world.


The Delta region has been destroyed by hurricanes and left for dead. Survival of the fittest. No one expect the people living in New Orleans to survive the Delta Fever, so when Daniel, an overly optimistic scientist, sneaks across the border to New Orleans he is shocked to find that everything he has been told is a lie.


The Delta is very much alive, and it's terrifying. Blood hunters become the new form of slavery and human traficking. They are ruthless and they lurk behind every shadow. Poor Fen is O Positive, which means she's a hot commodity to those suffering from Delta Fever. Her blood could give them life, and she is constantly being hunted for it. I don't know about you, but that right there was enough ot make me go "OMG" as I read this book. What an imagination! How terrifying this new America is!


The characters were pretty solid. Daniel was certainly foolish, but he meant well. Fen was fierce. She was determined, and she certainly wasn't going to sit back and accept defeat without a fight. Her quick thinking saved her numerous times throughout Orleans. The villains are many, and you can't limit them to one type of person either. I don't think it gets any worse than a blood hunter, but then I read about the evil woman that ran a blood bank/brothel using innocent orphans. That was pretty awful. Betrayal lurked everywhere.


I have to be honest, though, that I was a little worried when I started reading. Fen is from deep in the Delta and so she speaks with a distinct dialect. It was hard to read at first because my brain was revolting against the lack of subject-verb agreement. Ultimately, however, that distinct voice is what made this book so unique. Fen was very believable-- from her speech patterns down to her love of her hair. It was so real, and my heart ached for her in the end.


In short, this is a must read. No questions about it. It is by far one of the best dystopians I have read in 2013. I really, really, really hope it will be a series because I can't get enough of Orleans!

Recently, I’ve decided that while I’m not a big fan of YA dystopian, I really like post-apocalyptic novels. Orleans is yet another example of that trend. This is a strong, moving book that grabbed me at the start and held me to the end. Mostly, I was totally impressed by this book; Smith did a truly excellent job here, and this was just about perfection.

From the first page, readers are thrown into the gritty, harsh world of Orleans. Fen de la Guerre is a young survivor who’s seen it all. Her narrative (which utilizes vernacular) is gripping and intense. Fen is pragmatic and cool, traits that have helped keep her alive. But, unfortunately, they also tend to make her a bit inaccessible, since she has learned over the years to eschew emotional influence in her life.

Through some very well-done flashbacks and Fen’s general narrative, we learn about life in the Delta and what it is to be one of the infected. Instead of racism, people now persecute each other based on blood type, and the wars between clans are just as ugly as any of today’s ethnic-related feuds. Life for Fen and her peers isn’t a happy thing. It’s a rough, scratch-out-a-living-if-you-can experience. The goal is survival, nothing more.

Sherri L. Smith’s world-building here is fantastic. Without excessive info-dumping, she managed to perfectly explain what happened to create the setting Orleans takes place in. I was hugely impressed with the scope and depth of the background in this novel. I could understand perfectly how the Fever had occurred, how the USA had decided to abandon much of the South, and how those shut out from the rest of the world had adapted to their current society. All that was very well thought-out.

Though there are a few brief side-trips, the storyline of Orleans is focused on one goal. Stuck with a newborn baby, Fen has to get her out of the city and into the Outer States before the baby becomes infected with the Fever. Along the way she meets scientist Daniel, who has good intentions but is hopelessly naive as to what life behind the Wall is actually like. Moving from one serious predicament to another, Fen never has a dull moment, and by extension, neither do readers. I will say, though, that the plot “twist” toward the end felt like a bit much, and looking back, I’m a bit disappointed.

However, Orleans is still, by and large, a very successful novel. It delivers an action-packed story alongside brilliant world-building, told from the perspective of a tough and admirable young woman. As I said, this is nearly perfect.