Title: The Book of Ivy
Author: Amy Engel
Publication Info: Published November 11th 2014 by Entangled: Teen
ISBN: 1622664655
Series: The Book of Ivy #1
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia, Romance
A good book allows you to enter the world within and live between its pages for a time. A great book doesn't give you a choice. Its narration takes hold of you and pulls you under without you even knowing when it happens. By the time you realize it, you just accept it and get comfortable.
You already know that you'll be there for a while.
The Book of Ivy was one of those great books for me. This narrative kept me up when I should have been asleep (I had school in the morning, after all.), curled under a large quilt and immensely grateful for the invention of tablets and E-reader apps.
The author, Amy Engel, presents Westfall: a town with a population of about ten thousand people - presumably all that are left in the United States in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Westfall is divided into two parts, one slightly better than the other, and every year, teenagers aged 16 and up from each side are married to each other. This tradition is maintained in order to keep the peace and order of the town. It is also to encourage healthy population growth. Because of the residual effects of nuclear bombs, the younger you are when you produce children, the higher the likelihood that your kids will be born healthy.
The marriages are determined by a series of personality tests and the final decision is exactly that: final. The teens don't have a choice in the matter.
Our heroine and narrator, sixteen-year-old Ivy Westfall, is on her way to get married at the beginning of this tale. She is the youngest granddaughter of the Westfall who was responsible for bringing together survivors of the war and settling them in the town, only to lose his role of leader in a conflict to the Lattimer family.
Fifty years later, a Lattimer is still the President of the town, a role that will be passed on to his son, Bishop Lattimer.
As the daughter of the founder (also a title that is passed down to sons, this time in the Westfall family), Ivy has been chosen to marry Bishop. Because of this, her father and sister decides that she is to be the instrument through which the stages of their plot to take back leadership of the town will be carried out.
Her first mission? Kill Bishop Lattimer and help to restore her family to power.
Life with Bishop isn't what she expected, however. He isn't what she expected. Eventually, Ivy realizes that things aren't as simple as she thought. She begins to question her loyalties and choices, and ends up making a very difficult decision in order to save those she cares about - including Bishop.
The characters of this novel are complex and beautifully portrayed. Bishop, Ivy's eighteen-year-old husband, is generally easy-going. He is thoughtful, highly perceptive and can be ruthless - a quality that, like Ivy, I can only admire him for having. I find it ironic that it is Bishop's existence in her life, and not that of her power-hungry sister Callie, nor her father, that encourages Ivy to grow. In a society where there is not that much choice in certain aspects of life available to its citizens, Bishop gives her the freedom to make a large amount of choices within their marriage.
Ivy started out loyal to her family's cause, to the point where even when she realized that she was being manipulated, she still allowed it to happen. She often looked for approval from her sister and father, even when she began to question their motives for wanting to be in power. Ivy's voice as narrator was as straightforward as her personality, easy to follow and highly relatable. Her growth was subtle at first before becoming more apparent and I found myself rooting for her every step of the way.
Over the few hours I spent reading this book, I fell in love with Bishop, Ivy and their relationship. The ending of this first installment of this series nearly broke my heart.
This book made me cry at times, and smile, and left me hungry for more. I give The Book of Ivy a rating of a 10/10.
Favorite Quotes:
"We fall asleep that way. His lips on my neck. My heart in his hand."
"But I've learned the hard way, we can’t choose who we love. Love chooses us. Love doesn't care about what’s convenient or easy or planned. Love has its own agenda and all we can do is get out of its way."
"But I want to be better than the lessons they taught me. I want my love to be greater than my hate, my mercy to be stronger than my vengeance."
Buy this book at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble or wherever books are sold.
