I seriously enjoyed this story, you guys. It’s been so long since I read a YA dystopian and The Verdant Cage brought back all those familiar feels that I used to get from high school reading novels like The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner (although I never really read that one, just watched the movie 😅). 

We start off with a typical dystopian setup where you learn about Noah’s Valley, some of its rules, and that Rose Allgood is a healer (but won’t be for long since she has to marry a guy, her ex-childhood best friend by the way, who practices a different trade). Right before she and Gryphon, the childhood best friend, are wed, Rose’s mother is murdered and her twin brother framed. Since Noah’s Valley is walled-in (think The Maze Runner just without the maze), they take her twin brother, put him in a basket, and quite literally hoist him over the wall to never be seen again. Rose knows that the leadership around Noah’s Valley is lying, but she’s been too good, too much of a rule follower, to truly question anything. Now that her family has been broken and torn apart, she can finally see the Valley for what it is. 

After this horrible moment in Rose’s life, she is forced to leave her house anyway even though she and Gryphon never wed, and live with the Guardians and Gryphon’s legit horrible parents. She knows she wants to do something heretical, but she isn’t sure how to do it just yet. So, throughout the whole story, you get to see Rose as she grows from a rule follower to a true rebel against the injustices against her community. There are a LOT of twists, turns, and reveals that keep the novel interesting throughout the whole thing. 

With our main characters, you see tons of growth from Rose. Gryphon, though, felt like more of a mystery to me throughout the entire novel. Sometimes he’d make decisions that really made me question everything, and then he’d go around and do a complete 180. It fit with the way his character is built up, but man it gave me whiplash. You get a lot of secondary characters that you meet further on in the novel that added a lot of good additions to the story, but you honestly follow Rose, Gryphon, and Jarek (Gryphon’s father and our main antagonist) more than anyone else. All of the chapters are from Rose’s POV and in first person, so it was very easy to follow as well. 

In the beginning of my review, I mentioned how it reminded me of my favorite dystopian series. The Maze Runner is probably the one that The Verdant Cage can be compared to the most. It honestly felt at times like The Verdant Cage was following a majority of the formula for The Maze Runner and decided to change a few things up. You can still consider them very different stories, but there were many things that were eerily similar between the two (at least from what I know from The Maze Runner movies and not the book since I didn’t actually read it). If I’m being honest, that’s probably one of my only qualms with this novel is the fact that it was so similar in some ways to something that has already been so firmly established in the dystopian world. BUT that’s also a reason why I really enjoyed it. 

Spoilers ahead.

For those of you who’ve read it, a lot happens by the end of the novel. I’ll recap it here because I’m DEFINITELY going to need a recap by the time the next one comes out.

• Noah’s Valley is basically a cage for criminals who are made to serve a multi-generational sentence. Seriously. That part felt absurd that anyone could even consider that justice for the poor children born into the Valley. 
• The Valley is also protected by something called the Verdant Beast. A tech mogul from Before times developed a carnivorous vine that literally prevents anyone from getting out of the walled-in complex. It literally sucks the blood out of them. 
• Rose and her friends form a rebellion, get Jarek killed by the vine monster, but also lose a ton of people along the way. 
• Rose, Gryphon, Sal, and Albert are the only ones able to escape through the tunnel that leads to the world beyond Noah’s Valley. David, the sneaky horrible Record Keeper, is stuck behind along with the rest of Rose’s friends.
• Outside, they find evidence that Jonas is still alive, but they also find TONS of cages with Verdant Beasts making sure that no one gets out. It’s basically a farm feeding the vines and growing them to maturity. 

So, yeah, a lot happens. There are other things like the poison (herbicide to try and kill the Verdant Beast) and the fact that Albert killed Rose’s mother, but I feel like I covered a majority of the major twists at the end. I can’t say I was absolutely mind blown, but it has made me seriously excited for book two. 

Overall, I really enjoyed exploring Noah’s Valley and seeing Rose grow as a character. I think the premise is super solid, the characters built up well with really great arcs, and a very good mix of twists and revelations throughout the novel to keep you entertained. Definitely a 4.5/5 for me rounded up to 5/5 for social platforms. And honestly, the only reason it lost that .5 of a star is because of the similarities I mentioned to The Maze Runner. To say I’m excited for the next book is an understatement!

Source: Advanced Reader Copy from NetGalley 

(P.S. You can read tons of books—including ones written by me—by trying a free trial of Kindle Unlimited!)