In the new Republic of Texas, guns are compulsory and nothing is forgiven. Blue Running is a gripping coming-of-age thriller set in post-secessionist Texas. A fast-paced, page-turning book, it looks unflinchingly at what the future could hold, and finds hope there.
Fourteen-year-old Bluebonnet Andrews is on the run across the Republic of Texas. An accident with a gun killed her best friend but everyone in the town of Blessing thinks it was murder. Even her father – the town’s drunken deputy – believes she did it. Now, she has no choice but to run. In Texas, murder is punishable by death.
On the road she meets Jet, a pregnant young woman of Latin American heritage. Jet is secretive about her past but she’s just as determined as Blue to get out of Texas before she’s caught and arrested. Together, the two form an unlikely kinship as they make their way past marauding motorcycle gangs, the ever-watchful Texas Rangers, and armed strangers intent on abducting them – or worse. When Blue and Jet finally reach the wall, will they be able to cross the border, or will they be shot down in cold blood like the thousands who have gone before them?
Some things are worth dying for.
PRAISE FOR BLUE RUNNING:
"Brilliant." --Heat Magazine
"A fast-paced story that races along, and stays with you long after you’ve finished it." -- The American
"An important and unforgettable read." -- Armadillo Magazine
HALL WAYS REVIEW: AUDIOBOOK REVIEW. There’s Texas, and then
there’s America. Doesn’t sound dystopian, right? But in Blue Running, THIS
Texas has finally seceded, walled itself in, and every citizen over fourteen is
required to carry a gun. That still doesn’t sound dystopian as much as prescient,
which makes reading Blue Running, by Texan Lori Ann Stephens,a
real page-turner.
“We gotta trust in God and
the law.”
This book is all about the
setting. As Stephens starts the story, everything seems normal enough. We meet Blue
(short for Bluebonnet, of course), who’s trying to navigate life at age
fourteen. She’s embarrassed by her drunken father, embarrassed by her poverty,
and just embarrassed – because fourteen. But readers soon learn that this is not
the teenager’s life we know. For one, the kids have an armory at school where
they check-in/out their guns each day before boarding their buses home. People
aren’t stopped for carrying their guns in public places, they are stopped for not
carrying. And anything that comes from America, not Texas – like orange juice,
for example – has a heavy import tax so that only the wealthy can afford to
have it. Cell phone and internet reach, naturally, are controlled for most
Texans, because the leaders know best. Bless their hearts.
“I swallowed down
my own stupidity, but it
stuck in my throat refusing to dissolve.”
I love the words and phrases Stephens chose that
immerse the reader even more in the story and setting. Blue “piddled around” or
found herself “screwing up the courage,” and of course ordering a tea at a
restaurant means it’s delivered as iced, sweet tea. The description of
Blessing, Texas, is familiar with its lay-out that could easily be any
small-town, suburban Texas city. Since I listened to the audiobook and didn’t
read with my eyes, I don’t know if Stephens uses eye dialect, but narrator Ashley
Rose Kaplan uses g-dropping to help convey the Texas accent. That touch, along
with Kaplan’s slow, soft, and lyrical drawl, perfectly fits with Stephens’s
evocative writing.
Stephens doesn’t miss including any of the hot
button issues that are plaguing Texas (and beyond) right now. She spins a set of
believable, what-if scenarios of how life could be in a terribly wrong, not-so-distant
future. Blue Running is a different kind of horror story. It’s
especially terrifying for me because I know there are readers that think it’s
not dystopian, but utopian Texas.
Reading Blue Running is sometimes
super-stressful: the suspense! The danger! But it’s also a massive social
commentary on the fine line we are walking right now, and it forces thinking,
which may be uncomfortable for some. Stephens wraps up the book with a BANG
(literally & figuratively) and in the Epilogue, readers are told what we
need to know to be satisfied as we close the cover. But be warned: it also requires
us to envision our own ending. There’s that thinking thing again.
Novelist, librettist, lecturer Lori Ann Stephens grew up in North Texas, where she developed an addiction to the arts. Her novels for children and adults include Novalee and the Spider Secret, Some Act of Vision, and Song of the Orange Moons, and her award-winning work has been noted by Glimmer Train Stories, The Chicago Tribune, and the English National Opera. She teaches Writing and Critical Reasoning undergraduate courses, as well as creative writing graduate courses, at Southern Methodist University. She lives in Texas and is a bit mad about her cat.
