Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman : Book Review

Title: Vengeance Road
Author: Erin Bowman
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Published Date: September 1st 2015
Genre: Historical Fiction, YA, Western
Page Count: 327
Format: Hardcover

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 

Revenge is worth its weight in gold.

When her father is murdered for a journal revealing the location of a hidden gold mine, eighteen-year-old Kate Thompson disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers—and justice. What she finds are untrustworthy strangers, endless dust and heat, and a surprising band of allies, among them a young Apache girl and a pair of stubborn brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, a startling truth becomes clear: some men will stop at nothing to get their hands on gold, and Kate’s quest for revenge may prove fatal.

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 My Review:

“When I were first learning to shoot a rifle, Pa told me that nearly every battle people face is in their heads.”

When Kate’s father is killed by a group of men she decides to go and avenge his death, and learn why they killed him, and why it looks like they didn’t take anything before they destroyed the house.

Before she can go ride after the killers, though she has to keep a promise she’s made to her father since she was little, that if anything ever happened to him she would go and find Abe.

But when she gets to Abe’s house she learns that he is no longer there, instead his children are including two sons. Who decide to tag along with her until she reaches a certain destination where they say they’ll separate.

Except that doesn’t happen, instead the boys help Kate along the way including almost getting themselves killed multiple times. Kate also eventually gets a guide after she helps a Indian girl working in the saloon escape. But this ends up getting rather complicated thanks to the boys, being rude and prejudice of her.

I really liked this book. It does contain curse words though so if you don’t like that then I don’t think you’ll like this book. I loved the interaction between Kate and the other people in her group. While she was stand-offish it was for good reasons, and when she did start opening up and talking you could tell that that meant she really trusted them and liked them as well. I was not expecting that about her parents. At times I did wonder what exactly happened to her mom, but after a while I just thought it was me being suspicious for no reason.

This was exactly what I was looking for in a YA western though and I really hope more like it come out.

Spoiler

While I am glad Kate and Jesse ended up together, I would have also been completely okay if that hadn’t. Yes they had been through a lot together, but I also felt like maybe they weren’t the best for each other at times.  Did anyone else feel that way or is it just me?