A plague runs rampant causing the government to pursue a teen with the hope of providing a cure with her unique pheonix cell.

Hecat’s Plague runs havoc in Jamestown leading to mass sickness with anyone catching this deadly disease. Lyra and her family are constantly pursued by the government causing them to always be on the move. Dr. Hendrix befriends Lyra and her family in hopes in of discovering how Lyra unique phoenix cell could lead to a cure for the plague. In a twist of events, Lyra’s world is turned upside down when she learns of Dr. Hendrix’s ultimate betrayal. Lyra comes to terms with the betrayal in the hopes of finding a cure that could save millions of lives and end the governments harsh crackdown of people carrying the disease and those suspected.

I enjoyed this book very much with Jen Braaksma and her take on a deadly plague. Lyra is a teen who hasn’t experienced much life due to constantly on the run from the government. The author has a talent for creating a complex character who wants a life to call her own, but unable to because of the governments unyielding pursuit.

I highly recommend this book for its action and romance when David rescues Lyra in an attempt to finally have a life they both long for. A book you won’t want to put down to find out if Lyra uniques phoenix cell is the answer to end the devastating plague.

I felt this was well written, and it felt real since we've lived through COVID. The idea that the government would hunt down someone and use them for experimentation is an unsettling, but not unrealistic theme to add into a novel. The fact that it was a child is upsetting. I can understand the internal struggle for Lyra being a child trying to navigate this complex, dystopian world.

This was a quick read because it was so easy to become invested in Lyra's story.

I'd love to read about what happens after the events of this story.

Amaranth is a thrilling and scarily topical adventure featuring that classic journey of a young protagonist having an incredible power and not knowing how best to use it for good. Lyra is a teen girl living in a world wracked by the devastating Hecate's Plague and is seemingly the only one endowed with "phoenix cells" that are able to regenerate and fight off any infection. But fearful of her being exploited, her parents have kept her on the run and away from the hands of government scientists who want to manipulate her cells to create an invulnerable army of super soldiers. When a series of fateful events leave her on her own, she finds she has agency for the first time and starts questioning whether her parents made the right choices. Can she help rid the world of the scourge of the pandemic?

Of course, things aren't quite as straightforward as that and the book ends on ambiguous note, leaving the way open for a sequel. But I do appreciate how the book reflects there aren't any easy answers in life. We also get to know Lyra inside and out. This is my only quibble; I like a good dose of character interiority, but here we get to hear every last strand of what she's thinking at all times, and it can get too much. Sometimes you wonder how someone can go through such an exhaustive thought process while keeping up a conversation. But the character is sympathetic and likeable, I was rooting for her to do the right thing, so it's not too much of an issue. There is still enough action and twists and turns to keep this an exciting read, and I constantly found myself wanting to know what was coming next. Overall, well recommended for fans of YA, dystopian, and thrillers.

As a fan of dystopian novels I overall enjoyed this story. The thing that stood out for me was that Lyra felt like a teenager. She’s selfish and difficult, but that’s teenagers especially given the situation of her life it’s to be expected. The only thing that I struggled with was the pace. It just moves very quickly and I feel I struggled with really understanding any character or relationship outside of Lyra. Overall a good dystopian novel, that I think others will enjoy!

This was a interesting concept for a plague element, it had a unique concept and thought the characters were everything that I was expecting from them. Jen Braaksma writes a unique world and glad the characters worked in this story. I wanted to read more in this universe and left me wanting more.

What is the meaning of sacrifice and greed? What is the meaning of love and arrogance ? These are questions the book asks. It gives one answer but it does not stifle the opportunity to discuss different ways each character thinks and acts on these and more values.
I encourage you to read this and look beyond the story to the meaning. Thank you for the book!

This book had a lot of interesting concepts that pulled me into the story. I loved the idea of Lyra’s regenerating phoenix cells that essentially make her immortal, and COVID-19 appears tame compared to Hecate’s Plague, which kills its victims in three days. I enjoyed reading about a girl with special abilities on the run from government agents, reminding me of one of my favorite Stephen King novels, Firestarter.

While I loved the premise of this novel, there were some aspects that fell short for me.

I struggled to connect with the main character, Lyra, because she came off as such a negative person. It felt like she spent more time complaining about the position she was in than trying to find a solution to get out of it. I also wasn’t a fan of the insta-love between her and David or the way they verbally attacked each other, which I thought was too harsh to be considered little fights. The characters seemed to jump to conclusions and decisions that didn’t always make sense to me, and I wish things would have been a little more thought-out.

Some of the characters I did love included Jaz, with her will to fight despite being sick, Holly because of her carefree innocence, and Mama Jua because of her motherly care and kindness. I only wish that I’d been able to connect with the main characters as well as I did with these side characters.

Thank you to SparkPress for providing this book for review consideration via @netgalley. All opinions are my own.

“Amaranth,” by Jen Braaksma

A virus has swept the nation and caused a quarantine as people die left and right. Lyra has “phoenix cells” which regenerate her body no matter the injury. If she had let the doctors clone her cells when the Hecate’s Plague first started the plague could have been stopped. Her parents knew that the government would use those cells not only for good but to create an unstoppable army, so she ran.

The entire plague dystopian story was super relatable to our current world. The moral dilemma of wanting to save potentially millions from a plague but probably causing millions of people’s deaths when the government missuses her blood was super interesting. 3 out of 5 stars.

Thank you for the ARC, Netgalley.

The premise initially drew me in, but I was ultimately let down by the execution. It could be that I am not the target audience for this story, and I hope that it reaches the right one.

First of all, thank you to Jen Braaksma, SparkPress and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book before release.

Amaranth is super fast paced from the first page on, it really made me turn those pages, though at times I felt ut was a little too fast, too disjointed and a little all over the place. So it took me quite a while to get used to the writing and the pace of the story.

In the beginning of the book I found the protagonist Lyra to be a little annoying, too immature and selfish, but after reminding myself how she had to grow up, isolated and sheltered, and that she's still only a teenager, Lyra really grew on me and I actually started to kind of like the way she questioned everything, including herself. Throught the book you can literally see how she grows, how she realizes what life is about and what purpose she has in life. Which, to me, sends a message to all those who feel lost in their life, trying to figure out how the future can look like.

For all the other characters in the book I really missed the character- and relationshipbuilding. They were there, but you did not really have a reason to care about them. The whole David-thing, while I understand what the author was trying to do here, honestly had me cringe here and there, because it just came so out of the blue and I really didn't think the whole love at first sight thing was neccessary, why couldn't they just be friends?

All in all, I enjoyed the dystopian feeling of the book and I think there's great potential (I could see Amaranth being a duology had it been written a little more slow paced), given it's only Jen Braaksmas second book.

Dnf at 40%

This started out good but the constant use of "and" over and over again to make one extremely long sentence became super frustrating. I could not finish this due to the writing style

Originally, I thought that the premise of Amaranth would be better suited to a series, akin to Roth's Divergent. Having read Braaksma's piece now, I think it to be a perfect standalone work that is so much more than a dyatopian/post-apocolyptic piece of fiction.
The introspection of the protagonist is so vivid and real, and I feel that her struggles with feeling trapped, powerless, voiceless, and useless are universal and will resonate with many readers.
It wasn't until the last quarter (or so) of the book that I felt satisfied with the pace of the plot, but I now realize that this story is meant for more than just entertainment. That being said, it was an enjoyable read that had me tapping to the next page quite furiously at several points.
It isn't often that I come across a character who goes through the gamut of emotions that come with growing up (akin to the stages of grief), so now that I've finished this book, I feel grateful to have met Lyra and am thankful to have gotten the chance to receive this ARC.

Amaranth by Jen Braaksma is an entertaining young adult book. However, it was sometimes hard to engage with the writing and scenes and hard to follow because the storyline felt a bit disjointed, not revealing things that should have been revealed. I liked Lyra as a character.

The book has potential, and there is an audience out there for it; I just don't fit that audience for this particular book.

#NetGalley

I give this book 3 stars because I wasn't hooked from the first chapter. But it's quite a good book If you like YA books.

This story reminds me of The Last of Us meets Shattered me a bit. That is the reason I picked it. The story is enriched and I love the cultural names in the story, it brings in many of them, and shows we generally all have one common enemy other humans not based on race, or status.

The MFC was sheltered, she lived deprived of stability in a home, always on the run, she was unknown to the real truths of the outside world, therefore she is immature, selfish, guarded, not understanding of others actions or reasons. She grows throughout this story and is able to learn from mistakes. Mistakes that costed others many of times. It has a bit of action, adventure, horror, light romance involved that help piece it together into a fabulous read.

You get to learn, grow with all the characters, meeting different characters throughout different situations, these are younger characters. Do not expect some 30 year old's who have been living in turmoil and learned already.

Worth a read, the meaning of flowers, words in different languages all hold value and meaning to resonate within you.

I was excited to read this based on the summary, but it was a bit disappointing.

Lyra is an impulsive, dramatic teenager. She was all over the place and hard to follow. Most of her sentences ended with a question mark. There were a lot of unnecessary questions and very few answers. There were so many question marks in this book.

I couldn’t follow Lyra’s moods from one paragraph to the next. And the story moved way too fast. There was very little character or relationship building. Her relationship with David felt thrown together. The ending felt that way too.

I think there is potential for a great story here, it just didn’t make it on to the page.