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.