Foreign To You Book Review

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Foreign to You by Jeremy Martin
Published by Nine Star Press on 11th February 2019
Genres: YA
Pages: 342
Source: Netgalley
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The harmony between humans and fianna, a species of shape-shifting deer, begins to wither as racial tensions and deeply rooted resentment turns violent.

Ruthless hunter Finn Hail and prophesied liberator Adelaide may be heroes to their own species, but they are enemies to each other. With war on the horizon, the reluctant pair must team up to find the most elusive of prey: the god of the Forest.

As enemies press in from all sides, true intentions begin to show. For Finn to save the boy he cares for most, he might need to aim his gun at the very god he seeks. And Adelaide, with her festering hatred for mankind, will have to determine if peace holds true salvation for her people.

Foreign to You : The book where I spent the majority of the time confused and wondering when I would care about the characters.

Foreign To You was an ARC I received from Netgalley and I have to say I can understand why some people really love this book, for me however it just didn’t grab my attention or hold it.

I think the biggest issue I had all the way through Foreign To You was definitely the fact that I had NO idea what the hell was going on. I would have loved to know more about the fianna and what they actually were. I don’t think it was explained very well and I certainly didn’t understand the ending. The lack of set up for each of the characters meant that I wasn’t emotionally involved and the events that happened then had no impact on me. It was a bizarre way to read a book.

I spent the majority of the time trying to work out if I had missed something, or skimmed something. It felt as though we had jumped straight into the story with little or no explanation of what was actually happening. I think it was all underdeveloped, Foreign To You needed more of a backstory and less jumping all over the place. I would have loved for a more cohesive story arc.

Can we also talk about Adelaide? She was absolutely useless, and she didn’t even become a great hero by the end. She relied on everyone else and even made the tragedies that happened all about her and her failures. She was probably my least favourite character in Foreign to You which wasn’t hard because I wasn’t completely involved in any of the others, in fact I was pretty nonchalant about the others!

I definitely think that Foreign To You had a lot of potential but there was nothing there to make me carry on reading. I found it hard to get through and there were definitely moments where I stalled and genuinely thought about DNFing. I think the confusion over what was happening and the different characters was what killed this book for me. So keep that in mind if you’re going to be picking this up.

I will say that the writing and the setting were beautifully done. I really loved the way that the forest was a living thing, it was a great part of the story! I also loved the description of the stag, especially the way he drips life and rejuvenates the forest around him with every step. It was probably my favourite part of Foreign to You.

I don’t know that I would recommend Foreign To You, it didn’t really impress me and I thought it was lacking. There was definitely potential but it needed a lot of work and the characters needed more development.

Will you pick up Foreign to You? Have you already read it? Let me know what you thought!