Review: The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne

Title: The Girl in the Road
Author: Monica Byrne
Format: ARC
Publisher: Crown
Publish Date: May 20, 2014
Source: I received a copy from the publisher; however, this did not affect my review.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Meena, a young woman living in a futuristic Mumbai, wakes up with five snake bites on her chest. She doesn't know how or why, but she must flee India and return to Ethiopia, the place of her birth. Having long heard about The Trail -- an energy-harvesting bridge that spans the Arabian Sea -- she embarks on foot on this forbidden bridge, with its own subculture and rules. What awaits her in Ethiopia is unclear; she's hoping the journey will illuminate it for her.

Mariama, a girl from a different time, is on a quest of her own. After witnessing her mother's rape, she joins up with a caravan of strangers heading across Saharan Africa. She meets Yemaya, a beautiful and enigmatic woman who becomes her protector and confidante. Yemaya tells Mariama of Ethiopia, where revolution is brewing and life will be better. Mariama hopes against hope that it offers much more than Yemaya ever promised.

As one heads east and the other west, Meena and Mariama's fates will entwine in ways that are profoundly moving and shocking to the core. "

My Two Cents:

"The Girl in the Road" takes place in a futuristic world where there is a bridge used to collect energy that crosses from India to the Middle East/ Africa. Meena knows that she really shouldn't be on the bridge but she knows that it is the easiest way for her to travel to get back to her home country of Ethiopia. She meets fascinating people along the way that live on the fringes of society and will teach her more about herself than she ever could have imagined. Mariama is a young woman who lives in Africa and gets swept up in some of the revolutionary events taking place there. These two women will cross paths in a way that you cannot imagine until the end of the book.

I love sci fi and I really like when it's still realistic enough that you can imagine that someday something like the events in the book may actually happen. This is definitely one of those books. I really liked the idea of this bridge over the Arabian Sea. It was so interesting to me to read how the bridge itself attracted so many people that were not content to simply live a "normal" life. It's definitely an interesting storyline. 

The characters were interesting. I really was drawn more towards Meena's story though and almost wish that there had been a little more of a focus on her. She was fascinating and I loved reading about all of the different people that she met along her way while she was on the bridge. 

The book was interesting but stopped and started a lot for me. I think part of the reason that I found the book to be this way was because I was so much more drawn to Meena's character. Overall, this was an original storyline with a flair of good sci fi.