Summary
(from Goodreads)
Title: Headhunters Race
Author: Kimberly Afe
Publication
Date: 3 Jan, 2014
Publisher: January Sky Publishing
Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Avene was sentenced to prison at
thirteen for a crime she didn't commit. Now she has a chance to win her freedom
back – if she enters the Headhunters Race. Second prize isn't so bad either, an
upgrade to the Leisure Prison if you make it to the finish line. To win either
prize, Avene and the other prisoners must navigate one hundred and fifty miles
of dense forest, desert, and worst of all, cannibal territory.
With a mechanical collar timed to strangle the
prisoners if they're not back in nine days, Avene allies herself with
seventeen-year-old McCoy, another prisoner that insists on helping her at every
turn and a boy she's trying hard not to fall for. Together they battle nature,
other prisoners, and the timed death collars to win the coveted prize. But when
Avene is tested with one deadly conflict after another, she realizes there is
more at stake than winning her freedom – first she has to survive.
My
Thoughts:
Who has read hunger games and loved the book, will love Headhunters
Race. It is amazing book, which makes you be on edge the whole time while
reading it. It is quite short and that was my main disappointment in it. It was
less than 200 pages and I really wanted to know more about that world. The one
and only similarity with hunger games is the race. But not in its concept. While
tributes were chosen in Hunger Games, to participate in the race is your own
choice to gain freedom. And I didn’t just write freedom by mistake, I meant it.
All the participants of the race are prisoners sent to the prison for petite crimes
or just because the governor doesn’t like them. There is a mission, to find a
person named Gavin and bring him or his head to the governor. You have only 9
days to cover 160 miles and not get caught by the cannibals.
If I never was a big fan of Katniss, I became a really big fan of Avene.
She is great and I really did get a good feel on her character. I felt all her
emotions her fears and her desires. The only thing I didn’t like about Avene
was her wholehearted distrust to everyone and everything. I liked how she
became a new person, and we get to see everything from the first raw.
Another great character is McCoy. I didn’t get only one thing: is his
surname Mitchell or McCoy? I mean everyone calls him McCoy… okay not talking
about it now. He is amazing, and well I never was his fan in the beginning, but
I always was getting a good vibe from him, no matter how much Avene disliked
him, I had a soft spot for him, and he didn’t disappoint me.
Overall, the book is amazing, and I really can’t describe it all for
you. I really hope you will consider it, and will be as lost in it as I was.
Happy Reading! Enjoy every bit of it, and don’t forget to leave your thoughts,
and read this amazing expert.
XOXO
Katie
My
Rating:
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
This
excerpt is from the day the race starts and Avene is getting ready.
Hours later, when the
birds start chirping, I know it's almost time to wake up. I get out of bed and
change into my special clothes. The ones I've been saving for this day: a
sturdy pair of jeans and a man's blue flannel shirt. Underneath I wear my white
fitted tee-shirt, depicting a crudely drawn skull. I added the crossbones
bearing a set of daggers with a nearly dried-up marker I found a year ago. It
represents my mantra for the race: stay away from me or I'll kill you.
I tie my sheath around my thigh,
re-lace my boots with longer and sturdier cord I found on a pair of men's boots
in the goodie two shoes clothing pile, and then gulp down several handfuls of
water. I wipe the droplets from my mouth while I pace like a caged panther. A
few minutes later I slug down another five handfuls before I remember to fill
my water bottle.
Zita leans up on her elbow.
"You're sure you want to do this?"
"I have to, Zita. It's our only
way out. The only way we'll be free."
She throws off her cover and leaps
to her feet. "Well, we better do something with that hair. They'll start
calling the prisoners out soon."
Zita snatches our slop container
from the table. She fills it with dirt from the corner and mixes in a bit of
water. "I'm not sure how well this will work," she says, stirring it
with her finger. "Sit."
I sit on the ground cross-legged at
her feet. She kneels beside me, takes a small lock of hair, and rubs mud all
through the strands. The stringy tresses stick together, cold and wet against
my cheek. After one side of my head is finished, she steps back and surveys her
work. "Nope, this isn't working. Your roots are still too light."
"Why don't you wash her whole
head in it?" says McCoy.
I stiffen. Leave it to him to think
of dunking my whole head in mud.
"You're a genius!" says
Zita. She grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. "Help me," she says
to McCoy and I cringe at the thought of him touching my head when I'm a direct
competitor. He might send his ninja blade across my neck.
He grabs the sink, half full of
water, water I need to drink, and dumps three quarters of it into the corner.
"Hey, I need to drink that!" I say.
"You can drink ours," says
McCoy.
Right. I'm not going to drink
theirs. He'd love that. Especially now that he's going to have to hunt on his
own and the only way he knows how is by poaching off me.
Zita stops short of pouring in
handfuls of dirt. Instead she goes to the fire pit and scoops out gobs of ash.
She swishes it around with her fingers, stares at it like she's not satisfied,
and goes ahead and dumps in a handful of dirt anyway. "Okay, bend over,
girl."
I lean over the sink while Zita
pours the murky mixture over my hair and massages it in. It's gritty and gross.
"Hand me that old shirt in the
corner," says Zita.
I'm looking upside down at McCoy
while he retrieves the old shirt she uses as her dust rag. She wrings out my
hair and then places the shirt over top and squeezes out the excess water.
"I wish I had a comb," she says, flipping my head up and steering my
behind back to the ground.
"It's okay, I can use my
fingers," I say.
McCoy dashes into their room.
"Boom has one, hold on."
I lean my head back in defeat. He's
determined to help me, to make me feel obligated to help him in return, but his
niceties aren't going to work on me.
About the Author:
Kimberly is the
mother of two awesome kids, wife of the nicest man in the world, and her dog's
best friend. She works by day and
writes middle grade and young adult science fiction and fantasy novels in her
spare time. She lives with her family in the beautiful Sonoran Desert.
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