{Review} The Bad Rescue of Devon Streeter (Riven, #1) by B.C. Johnson

Posted by Melanie
Release Date: March 31st, 2015
Finished Date: April 9th, 2015

Publishers: Self Published
Genre: Sci-Fi, YA, 
Source: For Review
Format: eBook

Pages: 404

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US 

Devon's a teenage medic. Bloom's a wannabe gunslinger. Just two best friends hanging at the end of the world. 

When Earth and another world smashed together, everything went sideways. Some people survived, some inhumans too, and they all made for bad neighbors. Fighting for scraps on the face of a changed world, Devon and Bloom have to face alien magic, inhuman monsters, and the inescapable fact that the Merge is going to change them. Deviate them into . . . something else. 

But when circumstance flings Devon and Bloom apart, can they find each other across the wild wastelands? 

Will they recognize each other when they do?

The Review: The Bad Rescue of Devon Streeter is the first book in the Riven series and I’m giving it a solid 4*s!
As the synopsis tells us – Earth is no longer the earth we know, another world smashed into our and created a ‘merge’. With the new world came the strange….. and not all of them are friendly to humans…in fact they’d down right hostile and to be caught by one is surely to face death. The humans that survived formed communities where your childhood is filled with training and everyone has a place in the community to keep people alive. They survive by scavenging and trying not to be caught by the aliens that terrorise them. It’s on one of these scavenging missions that Devon and her best pal Bloom get ripped apart and their lives will never be the same.
I really enjoyed this story and found that the author has created an interesting new world filled with new species and dangers that put the humans lower on the food chain. It’s a dystopian world above all else but the changes have been drastic to what humans are used to, food is scarce, housing too and communities are created in the effort to survive giving them a very militarised feel where ranks are given and everyone has a designation and sort of a career path. Devon is a 16 yr old girl who is training to be a medic, that’s a lot for a 16yr old’s shoulders but it’s like a calling to her and exactly how she ends up getting herself into trouble. I found she was a cool character, she had a great sense of humour and was very focussed on doing what was expected of her. I liked the bond that she shared with Bloom, he was fun too, more laid back than Devon with a penchant for cowboy attire but a perfect partner in crime for her. They fit well, had a very relaxed relationship and you could really feel their closeness even though they spent most of the book apart.
When Devon dives head first into a really dangerous situation, her life is irrevocably changed which in turn opens up her world and shows the reader what she is really made of. We become aware of deviants, humans who have been affected by radiation from the nuclear plant and have some sort of powers because of this. Devon is taken to a sort of camp for these type of young adults, here they are trained how to use their powers, shown how to do missions, put into situations where they have to use anything at their disposal to win etc. is it a jail or a school though? Devon is definitely put through her paces as she faces shocks, danger, loss, acceptance and battles that seem hopeless but she also gets a little taste of first love too.
Meanwhile, Bloom is told that Devon is dead! But he knows she isn’t, he believes she is still out there so he leaves home to search for her and has a dangerous adventure of his own where he is forced to befriend the enemy, runs for his life, is faced with multiple threats and faces the biggest, baddest of all…… when all he wants to do is rescue Devon so things can go back to the way they were. He will not give up….not until he’s dead and gone. The story is told from the multiple point of views, mainly Devon and Bloom, they were really easy to read and amiable which helped in routing for them to find each other again. The first part of the book was quite slow, there was a lot of travelling and internal thinking from both characters but once new characters were brought into it, it got more interesting as the dialogue began to flow and their situations moved on. There ended up being a ton of action throughout the rest of the book which I loved, we meet varying enemies throughout and see just what they’re capable of and how little human life means to all ‘different’ species. I liked that we got to see both sides of hunters and hunted, I also liked the set up that Devon found herself in and look forward to more from that faction. All in all, this was a great read, a really good introduction to the series and I’d definitely read more. 

Thank you to B.C Johnson for giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.