Review: Black City (Black City #1) By: Elizabeth Richards

Title: Black City (Black City #1)

Author: Elizabeth Richards

Published: November 13th, 2012

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars!

Goodreads Summary:

A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war.

In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-olds Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too strong.

When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.

My Review:

Reading this book was like riding a roller coaster for me, When you first get on you start up the hill and you are waiting for the action to start. That was the first half of the book, was like that for me waiting for the action to start and something to really immerse me in the world. Once I got to the halfway point that is when the roller coaster started and I was along for the ride all the way until the end. Once the action started I couldn't put the book down.

The book switches between the two perspectives of Natalie, a human girl who is the daughter of an emissary who is a large part of the government and Ash, a twin blood which is a half human, half darkling. To try and explain the plot of this book in a short paragraph is hard for me because I feel like so much happened. To really understand this book, I feel like you need to read it. 

Natalie was a character that in my mind was torn between what she wanted to believe. Her mother and most of the human government believe in the extinction of all Darkling's. Despite everything she knows and what has happened in her life because of Darkling's she doesn't believe that they should be hurt, or separated from the human population like they are currently. In the beginning of this book Natalie and Ash have a relationship where it is obvious that neither one likes each other but, they have a strange attraction to each other despite the fact that they want nothing to do with each other. 

Ash was definitely an interesting character, he is a part of two races but he never quite feels like he belongs to either one. He lives on the human side of the segregation wall because he is a twin blood and his dad is human. He definitely is caught off guard for his unexplained attraction to Natalie and he doesn't like it at first one bit. But, I must say although there was a bit of insta love in this one, Richards gives you a reason for it and it all begins to make sense, so even though I don't enjoy insta love the factors of why it happened made it easier to bare and you didn't  quite feel like it was like they automatically fell in love and I really like that aspect of it. 

Overall, Black City really surprised me But, I don't think that everyone well love it, I had such a hard time writing this review because while reading this book I kept going back and forth trying to decide if I loved as much as I thought I did. As far as dystopian books go, I thought this was one of the more complicated ones because so much happens in this book and there is a lot of details to keep track of. I am happy to report that there is no cliffhanger ending but, you definitely get to see where Richards is going in the next book and I am definitely curious to see what happens next!