The Red Sun is a fantasy novel dealing with Norse mythology. I personally don't know much about Norse mythology so I highly enjoyed reading something different.

This book is about a boy named Sam who starts noticing weird things going on in his home town. First he gets a substitute teacher who tells the kids that she turned their old teacher into a lizard. Then he notices a dwarf that keeps telling him that he is not safe. Next he notices that a new student at his school is always in vision of Sam watching to make sure he is safe. Then the dwarf claims that Sam is from the magical realm of Orkney and that he is being hunted. Soon after the dwarf warns Sam his hunter finds him and he must escape along with his friends. Sam then makes it to Orkney. In Orkney there is a curse threatening the kill everybody and everything in all of orkney, and the 9th realm (Earth), and that everyone thinks that he is the only person that can stop it. As the plot thickens Sam finds himself having to make drastic decisions involving his friends, family, and everyone in existence. 

I thought the character development in this book was excellent. You really felt like you were one with the characters. I also thought that the theme of this book is really quite excellent. So after you finish the book I highly recommend thinking about the overall theme and the message it gives. I don't want to say what I thought the theme is for two reasons. One, it reveals a little about the ending and two, I don't want to influence your thoughts on the theme.

I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. I learned a little about Norse mythology through this book, so if you don't know anything about Norse mythology and are interested about learning some, read this book. I received this book through Book Sparks for their youth summer reading challenge.  

The Harvest by Chuck Wendig is the third book in the Heartland Trilogy. You can read my review for the first book here, and for the second book here.

The Harvest and the two other books in the trilogy are dystopian literature. The Harvest introduces some new characters, further develops some minor characters from the previous two books, and of course, continues on with the key characters. I feel like this book really provides more insight into what the characters lives are like more than the previous two books. My favorite part of the book was the epilogue since it provided you with a good ending, but still gave your mind some thoughts to ponder.

The Harvest was a good ending to the trilogy. It wrapped up most of the key points but left some things for the reader to decide what happened. I really thought the character development, the imagery, and the voice were excellent in this book as well as in the previous two books. I recommend this book for grades 8 and up due to violence, language, and other content. These elements are however necessary to the plot, and the book itself. I felt like the book dragged a little bit in parts by giving too many details that weren't relevant to the plot.    

I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. If you haven't read the other two books, I highly recommend you do so before reading this book. I received this book through Net Galley courtesy of Skyscape in exchange for an honest review.