Book Review: Riders by Veronica Rossi

Release Date: February 16th, 2016
Read: February 13th-18th, 2016
Publisher: Tor Teen
Series: Riders, #1
Format: ARC, 384 pages
Source: McNally Robinson/ Be First Book Club

Description from GoodReads:

   For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does.

   Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can't remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse.

   Over the coming weeks, he and the other horsemen--Conquest, Famine, and Death--are brought together by a beautiful but frustratingly secretive girl to help save humanity from an ancient evil on the emergence.

   They fail.

   Now--bound, bloodied, and drugged--Gideon is interrogated by the authorities about his role in a battle that has become an international incident. If he stands any chance of saving his friends and the girl he's fallen for--not to mention all of humankind--he needs to convince the skeptical government officials the world is in imminent danger.

   But will anyone believe him?

Review:

   I think it makes you human.
   Riders was one of those must have books of early 2016, especially when it came to ARCs. People raved and raved, you couldn't just not want one. Unfortunately in the end I did not find myself to enjoy it, after all the raving you would think that the hype is what killed it for me. But that was not the main reason, Riders was a book little pieces of work for me.
   First of all, the premise of the book messed with me a little. When you think the four horsemen, you think the bringers of the apocalypse, not the ones that save it. So Rossi taking the main idea of the story and swapping it really messed with me. I just couldn't be content with how Rossi planned it all out.
   Then there was the way the story was written, I've only ever read maybe one or two stories that were told like the way Riders was, a story told in the present while experiencing the story that the character is telling, and each time I would become so confused. The swapping was unnecessary, going back and fourth between past and present. In the end it'll make the sequel all that much more weirder to read. That's probably the only reason I'd read Seeker.
   Finally the biggest thing that made me dislike Riders, it was full out sexist. Rossi made the females in the novel to appear weak, while the men just had to be superior. Even the female demons in the novel were degraded, the male demons had these extraordinary powers, shapeshifting, being able to control darkness, but no. The females were given the powers of breeding more demons, both of them. And this wasn't the only time this sexisim appeared, it was ongoing throughout the novel. I just couldn't stomach it. If I wasn't reading Riders as a Book Club book then I'd probably would have DNF'd it.
   Riders was a disappointment, with a poorly developed plot, and all the sexisim, I am very disappointed with Veronica Rossi and do not see myself reading it's sequel in the future. 

Rating:

Favourite Quote:

"You'd be surprised. Sometimes the most average-seeming people are killers. You'd never know it by looking at them."

Recommend to People Who Enjoy:

Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Apocalypses, Urban Fantasy, The story of Sleepy Hallow, Horses