I, for the most part, enjoyed this book. I loved having more South Asian representation. The issues plaguing the planet were definitely hitting close to home: pollution, global warming, the incredibly uneven distribution of wealth. But there was hope buried under all that.

Unfortunately there was a lot of information to go through and the pacing was mostly quite slow. I don’t feel like I fell for the characters as much as I would have liked and I’m not convinced about the main couple. At least not yet.

I sadly didn’t care for this book as much as I wanted to, but I’m sure there’s an audience for it and I hope they find it.

I really wanted to love this book. Southeast Asia, yay! Climate change! Underdog characters!

And there were some aspects of the story I really thought potential, but sadly, I kept finding it a chore to get through. At first I thought it was just me being old, and tired (I read before bed time), and those elements might absolutely be true, but I've read a number of other books since that didn't bog me down, including some hefty historical non-fiction tomes replete with footnotes.

I'm going to blame the editor for not giving a talented, enthusiastic author enough tough love. There's no excuse for all the grammar glitches, the wads of info dumping, the paint-by-numbers insta-love. A couple more drafts could have smoothed all that stuff out and boosted this book up to the exciting read the premise promised.

Of course mileage varies, and I hope it finds its audience.

The future is terrible. Or, at least that’s what Olivia Chadha proposes in this cyberpunk, post-war, destroyed-climate dystopia. She situates her story in South Asia, specifically in two places: the Narrows, and affluent Central city.
The Narrows is chock full of people with a variety of augmentations and prosthetic limbs, and rife with gangs, the impoverished, and the Red Hand, a rebel organization comprised of different cells, each with different functions, all working to improve the lives of people in the Narrows, and to oppose those in Central, where the Haves live. The Narrows is a place full of desperation, hope, secrets, damage and jury-rigged and failing systems.
The author tells us it has been twenty five years since WW3, and South Asia’s governing body constantly monitors the health of the Narrows’ population using an AI called Solace. People in Central live shiny and clean lives of luxury, and access is strictly controlled to the place. And though Central is immeasurably cleaner and safer, we quickly discover that questions are discouraged.
Meanwhile, Solace occasionally finds a person healthy enough to be allowed to move to Central from the Narrows; the majority of Narrows live lives of scarcity and fear of Central finding ever new ways to oppress them.
There are three POV characters, Ashiva, a longtime smuggler and member of the Red Hand, Riz, a Central rich kid and hacker very dissatisfied with his life since his uncle was killed by the administration, and Taru, an orphan rescued by Ashiva years earlier, who also works for the Red Hand and has a talent for explosives.
The three characters’ lives become intertwined after a government crackdown (i.e., culling) in advance of a conference in Central of several affluent groups from other places in the world.

I liked the setting and the many different types of people in the Narrows.
The clash of entitled with the desperate isn’t new, and the Narrows is reminiscent of other cyberpunk settlements/ghettos I’ve encountered in fiction, but what makes it interesting is its South Asian location and its myriad peoples, languages, religions and foods.
The author also shows us that the people in power, whether in Central or in the Red Hand, have complicated and contradictory agendas, making no one fully right or wrong in this plot.
I was not as engaged by this story as I was hoping I would be when I first heard of this book because I found it hard to care for the three POV characters. Each chapter switches PoV and we spend most of the story with Ashiva or Riz, contrasting their feelings, experiences and understandings of the world. I did not feel that my sympathies had been really engaged by either of these two characters. The writing was awkward in several places, leaving me either a little puzzled or distanced from the plot or the characters, and taking me out of the narrative several times.
I was really looking forward to this book, so I’m a little disappointed to give it a 3-star rating.

Thank you to Netgalley and Erewhon Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book left me with some mixed feelings.

It was very plot-driven, and I think the writer did that quite well in the second half of the book. The first half wasa little slow, but it did give a good understanding on what the world is like. I did not think it was too descriptive, it was exactly right to my taste. Tastes can differ though. The plot was mostly what I expected it to be, but Chadha did manage to surprise me on some points. Not on the one about insta-love, unfortunately. I had hoped on a book where respect would grow without that.

One thing I am hesitant to mention, because I read an advanced copy, but in this case I will anyway. Especially the first half was full of spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes and simply clunky sentences that did not add up. Like 13% in, I got the sentence "In the past the Red Hand commits arson and arms civillians" - this reads very crooked, if it's in the past, it should be past tense. It read like Chadha learned (like we did in primary school) that you should either always use present tense or always past tense. In a lot of ways that does not work though, like in the aforementioned example.

I don't know how else to say it: this is a mess of really bad writing. I thought at first it might be a deliberate effort to convey the feel of this future world to the reader, but I checked Chadha's other novel and no, this is just how she writes. Broken rhythm to the prose, info-dumping, clunky sentence structure, missing words and continuity errors - this should have gone through at least two more rounds of editing. At least. Vehemently anti-recommended!

Rise of the Red Hand is a thought provoking start to a new series. I quite liked some components, while a few others left me wanting a bit more. Let’s break it down!

What I Loved:

•The world was both incredibly complex and utterly believable. I mean, it was awful, don’t get me wrong. The rich got richer and the poor… well, they would just exterminate them if they got in the way. Truly, it’s the selfish rhetoric that we’re all intimately familiar with run amok. I also loved how the author was able to include so many wonderful references to South Asian culture, it really made the setting feel very authentic!

•I absolutely rooted for the characters at every turn. Obviously, the way they are being treated is total trash, and I wanted them to overcome their oppressors. I wanted them to get to live, you know? They’re all flawed (some more than others) but they have good intentions, and they do show growth throughout the story, which I definitely appreciated.

•The plot, when it picked up, was compelling. Look, we all want the oppressive regime overthrown, yeah? Well, I guess unless you are part of said oppressive regime, but I digress. The stakes are very high, not just for the characters the book focuses on, but for all of their people. Not only is the government trying to harm them, but environmental and biological factors come into play as well, turning their intended revolution into an absolute necessity.

What I Didn’t:

•Oh, the info-dumping. This is my biggest complaint with the book, really. Because it had two negative effects here: One, the actual dumping of said info, during which I had a very hard time concentrating, which led to me not retaining bits that I needed to retain to understand what was happening. It was sort of a snowball effect- I’d start to mentally check out during the info dumps, but then I’d miss key parts of the world or characters or story which made me confused, which led to a lack of focus for the next one.Two, it made the pacing feel very off, and very slow at times. Which again, led to me losing the ability to focus on reading it. The book does pick up quite a bit in the second half, but the first half was a bit of a slog, frankly.

•Kind of insta-lovey. I don’t generally dig insta-love, and for Ashiva, it felt even more out of character for her to be head over heels for Riz-Ali, someone she doesn’t know, that quickly. And I am not saying that the two couldn’t grow to be in love, it just seemed way too quick, and I didn’t really feel it.

•I preface this by acknowledging that it is an advanced copy, and hopefully will be fixed up but… just way too many errors were happening. Like, whole chunks that didn’t make sense, instances where someone would say something that negated a thing that happened in the chapter before, etc. And I genuinely couldn’t tell which I was supposed to believe at that point. Errors happen, especially in an advanced copy, but when it occurs to the point where it takes me out of a story, I feel obliged to mention it.

Bottom Line: A wonderfully complex world with characters to cheer for, it would have been helped by a bit more even pace and less info-dumping.

A phenomenal post-apocalyptic tale that shows the cost in trying to build an utopia for a chosen few.
Revolutionaries from without and within work together to save the lives of the dregs of humanity living in the shadow of a perfect society and try to take down the corrupt leaders who are trying to build a new civilisation on the ashes of the world that was.

Set in the ruins of South Asia this book is a mix of anime-inspired action and a desperate rearguard action to save the poorest people from a world that has fallen to the abyss of a post climate change death spira..

Highly recommended !

Wow, a powerhouse debut from Olivia Chadha! I love the spin on dystopian - this time the focus is on climate change and the land is based on South Asia. Two things I'm 100% here for! It was a thrilling yet thoughtful book that really forced me to think more deeply about the world we live in. Loved it.

In Rise of the Red Hand, we enter a dystopic world after WWIII. Unlike many books in this genre that are set in the west, this book takes place in South Asia. The setting is a breath of fresh air and Chadha brings this world alive in the descriptions of all of the settings. I appreciated the inclusion of a dictionary as there were many terms native to South Asian dialects that I was unfamiliar with. That was definitely a unique aspect of this book and I adored it. The events of the book unravel at a moderate pace, although the beginning was a little slow for me. While I really wanted to adore the characters in this book, I connected best with Taru and least with the main characters Ashiva and Synch. Overall, an interesting concept but the characters lack a bit of depth and the plot was predictable. I'd recommend this title for younger YA readers who enjoy sci-fi. .

I read a good amount of science fiction. However, the sci-fi that I read tends to be adult fiction, so I'm always on the hunt for good young adult sci-fi. I pretty much immediately requested this one on NetGalley when I saw it because revolutionaries? Hackers? Cybernetic enhancements? South Asian setting??? Yes. Yes and yes and yes. I really enjoyed all of these elements, but overall I think the plot was way too slow.

First of all, I don't think I've ever read a sci-fi novel set in South Asia??? So that was really awesome. The author causally uses words from various languages used in India (such as Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu) without pausing to explain, though there is a glossary at the end of the book. I really appreciated this, because it sets the South Asian cultures as the norm which is refreshing. And then the mention of the Indian food....help I'm hungry!!

The world building is sooooo cool!! Like yes I mentioned the setting, but also this is a world that is like post nuclear fallout, and is very separated. FOR SURE a dystopia if that wasn't clear from the synopsis haha. There's so much cool tech, like advanced algorithms, giant fighting mechas, and cybernetic enhancements. Our main character, Ashiva, has a "replacement" arm, aka a robotic arm (so she's a cyborg one might say). I think this could make a really cool movie! I just want to see this all come to life.

There is also one of my favorite tropes - any guesses?? Yes that's right, it's found family. Ashiva and many of the other children and teens living in the Narrows (the poor area) are orphans, and have banded together to form their own family. Ashiva in particular has a sister and brother that are not her blood siblings, but they are her core family. I do wish we had gotten to see more of their interactions!

I thought it was really interesting to see the moral dilemmas that were presented in the book. For the most part, this whole society wants to do what they can to save people - but the difference lies in who they determine "worth" saving, and how they go about doing the saving. There are a few things that are clear cut in this situation, but a lot of it is a gray area. I think this was handled interestingly in this book, which I can't really talk about more without some spoilers. But suffice to say, people are complex, and intentions and consequences are two different things.

What really brought down my rating for this book was the pacing and plot. I really struggled to get into the book for at least 50% of it. Things were moving so slowly plot wise, that it felt like just a lot of telling us about the world. I was really conflicted, because the world is so! cool!! But it really dragged and nothing seemed to happen until the last third of the book or so. It's unfortunate because I think this might dissuade a lot of readers with continuing, even though the ending is action packed. This was my one major issue with the book, and yes, I know it's just one thing. However, it was such a problem for me that it really prevented me from falling in love with the book. I definitely think this is something that can be improved in subsequent books!

So overall though I did find it too slow, I still really enjoyed the world and the last bit of the action. I will most likely read the sequel, and am looking forward to more books by this author!

This story takes place in a Southeast Asian cyberpunk society of haves and have-nots, rebels and hackers, and cyborgs and mechas. Three teens--Ashiva, a rising leader of the rebellion in the slums, Riz-Ali, a sheltered coder from the privileged Upland, and Tara, a girl from the slums raised to believe she was frail--work together to thwart a nefarious scheme to cleanse the population. I was fascinated by the imaginative and thorough world building and intrigued by the characters' complex motivations and relationships. A very enjoyable read.

See this review and more at my blog, The Scribe Owl!

Thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

2.5/5 stars

I am honestly so sad that I didn't like this book. It had all the components that I like--a cyberpunk world, a cool rebellion, and other things, but the execution fell flat in every aspect.

The South Asian Province is split in two. Uplanders lead luxurious lives inside a climate-controlled biodome. Outside, the poor and forgotten barely scrape by. Ashiva works for the Red Hand, an underground network of revolutionaries fighting the government. When Ashiva crosses paths with the brilliant hacker Riz-Ali, a privileged Uplander who finds himself embroiled in the Red Hand’s dangerous activities, they uncover a horrifying conspiracy that the government will do anything to bury. From armed guardians kidnapping children to massive robots flattening the slums, to an epidemic that threatens to sweep through the city like wildfire, Ashiva and Riz-Ali will have to put aside their differences in order to fight the system and save the communities they love from destruction.

The general gist of why I rated this book so low is because it felt like a chore to read. I didn't want to do it and I only did it because I'm on a deadline. When the book is so disinteresting that you're skim-reading, something isn't right. I guess I'll break down why it was so boring in the next couple of paragraphs, but if all you need is a quick rundown, here's that.

Literally everything was erratic, especially the pacing. Nothing at all happened for the first entire half of the books. The main characters hadn't even met! I think the author was attempting to set the mood and establish the worldbuilding, and that's fine. But please cut down on the amount of it next time! After that, there were weird little bursts of fast pacing in a sea of slow pacing. I felt like it was dragging me along, and then suddenly we're sprinting. Like I said, erratic.

The characters were a no-go. I understand what the author was attempting to do, but they came out as one-dimensional. Ashiva's personality was "fight" and Riz-Ali's was "sheltered rich boy fighting for loooove." By the way, what happened to Riza's name change? About two-thirds of the way through the book, Ashiva mentions in passing that Riz would rather be called Kid Synch. Kid Synch. I'm sorry, but I can't take that seriously. And then that's how all his POV titles were named.

INSTA-LOVE I REPEAT INSTA-LOVE ALERT ABORT ABORT. I HATE insta-love. Basically, our MCs (Ashiva and Riz-Ali who I REFUSE to call Kid Synch) didn't really like each other. Then, they took and walk and fell in love. That is literally what happened. I just...no. No no no.

The worldbuilding was fine I guess. We were kind of thrown in the deep end with no real explanation at any point about what was really happening except the divide between rich and poor people and that the world went boom a quarter of a century ago. We didn't get to learn how any of the organizations arose or anything. The author started using all these acronyms that I guess were from the quick history and I'm still not sure what some of them stood for.

I know that this was the first book in a series, but I felt like there was so much unnecessary content. We learned about so many people that never showed up again and there were many plots that were started but not finished. Again, this is just the first book and they might be useful later, but it made the book a little fluffy.

As you might have been able to tell, this book was not for me. That said, I wish the author the best and I hope she finds a good audience to love her book!

*Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own*

The beginning of this book is very difficult to read, the author introduces us to the world at the very beginning and I admit that I don't know if I understood everything at first, I had to read some parts more than once, because the author used words I never saw and expressions I didn't know it either, but that may be because English is not my first language.
The author uses a lot of specific language about mechanics, technology, and computers that I'm unfortunately not used to reading in English, so I felt that I missed a lot of details about how the world works or what was really happening.
In addition to having a lot of South Asian culture and history as well, which for me that is not very used to having contact with this culture, made my understanding of history even more difficult (but the author has a small glossary at the end of the book that helps a lot with that).
So as you can see this reading was very difficult for me, here we have a dystopian world that takes place after the 3rd world war occurred.
I loved this book even with all the difficulty I had to read I still read the book very fast because the story is completely captivating and you can't stop reading because the world created by the author involves you in a spectacular way and you also get attached very fast to the characters.
The book does something that I started to like a lot, which is in the first chapter, show an event and then go back in time to show how the characters arrived at that event and what happened soon after.
I think this is a book for everyone who has been orphaned by YA dystopias because this is a dystopia that I see the author being able to do a lot of things with more books in the series and expanded the world a lot but at the same time I have no idea how it will solve everything wich only makes me more anxious for the next books,
This is the kind of book that I will definitely reread to read the next ones and if it is translated into Portuguese I will read it again too, I am so in love with this story.

It's a rarity to find this combination of elements in a book. It's is a dystopian world, set in South Asia. Complex politics, cultural settings and interesting characters. I really enjoyed this book.

There were times where i was a bit overwhelmed with amount of information pouring at me, so I'm sure world-building could be a little better.

Follow Ashiva and his Red Hand rebels, cyborgs and what-else not, and enjoy this interesting story for yourself.

Welp, I am very sad now.
I expected so much more from this book but I was left disappointed.
My problems with this were the very chunky writing and the extreme info dump which left me confused. The pacing was also a bit off, and as you all know, slow pacing really bores and puts off the book for me.

2 Stars.

The premise of this novel sounded intriguing. Dystopia, cyborgs, battle, adventure. All good things I do enjoy reading. Where this book fell short was the over amount of information dumped on the reader at the beginning. In all honesty, I almost put this book down thinking I would not be able to enjoy it anymore but I gave it a chance and finished it. Halfway through the book is when things got interesting and the story finally picked up. I'm sad that it took that long to get to the good stuff and I wish we received that from the first part of the book. The second half of the book was enjoyable. I do wish the action sequences were more played out. They felt really short lived. That and the information dump at the beginning forced me to give it a 3.5 star rating. Hopefully the rest of this series will play out better.
If you like this type of novel I do recommend checking it out for yourself but just be ready to receive a-lot of information before the story even starts.

Thank you Netgalley and Erewhon Books for an advance copy of this book.

Unfortunately, I think I’m wasn’t the best audience for this book to give the fairest of opinions. I found myself either not in the right frame of mind or the plot to be sort of confusing,( but I think it was me). I did appreciate the unique sci-fi/distopian take on climate change and quality representation!

Included as a top pick in bimonthly January New Releases post, which highlights and promotes upcoming releases of the month (link attached)

This dystopian sci-fi story set in the South Asian province is a must read for those who love action-packed books with cyborgs, and revolutionaries fighting the government that is oppressing them. I believe that this book would be perfect for fans of Emily Suvada's This Mortal Coil.

The story follows Ashiva, a member of an underground network of revolutionaries called the Red Hand. Ashiva works as a smuggler for the organisation. When she crosses paths with an Uplander and a talented hacker, Riz-Ali, they get entangled in a conspiracy that puts Ashiva's home, the Narrows, in danger of destruction. The two of them have to fight the system and save the people they love from the horrible fate the Uplander government has in store for them.

This book has a complex world with a political conflict that places the comfort of the rich above the lives of the poor. And it's very interesting to see how this book shines a light on many issues in the world we can see today, and what catastrophic impacts those issues have on so many lives. This story also focuses on the relationships and connections between the characters, adding another layer to this gripping story.

All I'm going to say is that I loved this book from start to finish. It was everything I ever wanted in a dystopian sci-fi. Cyborgs? Check. A group of revolutionaries fighting against a corrupt government? Check. A beginning of an interesting love story? Check.

I can already see this series being one of my all-time favorites. And I'm itching to get my hands on the sequel, so that I can find out where this story goes next.

A HUGE thank you to Erewhon and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rise of the Red Hand is a piece of genre fiction that does a great job constructing a world that is believably an extension of our current existence; this book offers much to consider in all the issues it aims to highlight - technological and environmental ethics, the effects of a pandemic that is set to disproportionately affect the disenfranchised, social stratification… The world-building is really detailed, and while the descriptions of the world and the history of the setting overwhelmed me a bit at first (at certain points, this aspect felt info-dumpy and didn't flow very well), I liked how the author didn’t shy away from the science of it all. Also, it should be noted that there were definitely some parts of the book that felt choppy, or there were editing errors, and that did undercut my enjoyment a bit.

I really liked how the cultural references to food and language were incorporated, without pausing to explain them away, and I can imagine other South Asian readers might find this heartening. I know some readers who might be unfamiliar with South Asian culture might find this off-putting, but I would like to note here that it does mean a lot to have this kind of unapologetic representation in some way. That said, the themes we find in this dystopia - of classist ideology, capitalism, climate change effects, power-hungry leaders, etc. - are universal, relatable, and tangible, so I think even if those smaller cultural references can’t be understood by everyone, the overall story is worth reading and reflecting on. I absolutely loved seeing all the social and moral dilemmas being laid out and their aftermaths being presented; this book left me thinking a lot about the state of the world (which, admittedly, I do unprompted, but still 😅)

This book is a promising debut, and I’m curious to see where the story will go (I’m especially looking forward to getting to know the characters better!). If you like cyberpunk and/or dystopian stories with frank social commentary, this is a book for you.