Decades ago, a businessman drilled into the earth looking for a new source of fuel, and unwittingly released dragons. The beasts proceeded to destroy the world, and although all but one were killed, far more people were lost in the effort. When the destruction more or less settled, a triumphant group of nine men emerged from the ground. They claimed that they had found a way to control the Cursed One, as the final, immortal dragon was now called, and anyone who wished to live had to seek protection in the nine city-states the men would now set up on the only continent still populated by people. Now, fifty years later, Commander Jason Chase rules his city of Baalboden as a tyrant. The rules he set up years ago set strict gender roles that cannot be broken. Women must have a Protector, and are expected to behave docilely and obediently.
But Rachel Adams doesn't fit the mold of the ordinary Baalbodenese sixteen-year-old girl. Her father, the city's best courier, trained her in fighting, and she's fierce, independent, and the exact opposite of what Baalboden girls are supposed to be like. Unfortunately, Jared Adams has gone missing on a mission to Rowansmark, a rival city-state, and the Commander has declared him dead. At the reading of Jared's will, Rachel expects that her Protectorship will be assigned to Oliver, an old baker who has been like a grandfather to her, but instead, her fate ends up in the hands of Logan McEntire, Jared's inventor apprentice, who two years ago Rachel confessed love to, and he shut her out. They haven't really spoken since, and now they're expected to live under the same roof, see each other every day, and work together. They both want Jared back, and they both suspect that the official declaration of Jared's death is not at all reality. So much stands in their way, mostly the result of the Commander and his regime. Rachel can't stop thinking about her lost father. Logan can't get the image of his mother, dead at the hands of the Commander thirteen years ago, out of his head. Written in two perspectives, Defiance tells the story of these two young adults trying to get back what's important to them and looking for a life together.
A lot of dystopian books and fantasy books for teens have the tendency to run on a single-minded, horrendously boring plot that makes you feel awfully vapid if you have the misfortune to read such a book. Defiance was not inflicted with this disease. Rachel and Logan aren't just trying to find Jared, with a love story on the side. The government is corrupt, the tragic character of the tracker Melkin becomes central to the story for a while, and there's a secret organization that shows up at either end of the book, not to mention the huge, great dragon terrorizing the people of the world. A perfect level of complexity in a plot, I think.
I'm not sorry to have read Defiance, and I might read the next book (Deception) but there was one thing that kept bothering me quite a bit. Logan and Rachel felt inconsistent. I couldn't figure out if Rachel was a broken girl in need of a strong man to lean on or a fierce warrior looking for a partner to fight and live alongside. Logan seemed torn between being an impulsive, survivalist man who grew up in the bad part of town and wants to save his girl and a tech-obsessed, peace-wanting guy who thinks better with his girl by his side to help him fight. They both kept switching between the two possibilities for each of them throughout the book, and sometimes one of them would be a weird combination of both personalities. It was a bit irritating--why would a tough, independent warrior think of her boyfriend as such a protective figure? Why would a boy who grew up in the violent neighborhood have such a passion for inventing? And sometimes the things they'd say or do wouldn't be consistent with their personalities--either personality of either character. Kinda weird, in my opinion, but since Redwine has no other books listed under the "Books" tab on her blog, "The Last Word," I have to assume that the Defiance Trilogy is her first stab at published writing, and she may improve her character-creation skills as time goes on. Since most of her other writing points are solid, she can absolutely focus on this area and keep getting better.
In short, I would recommend this book to most fans of dystopia and also people who scoff at dystopia and wish that it would be different. It's good and pretty solid, and I might read the next book, Deception (there's a third book, Deliverance, and a prequel e-book novella called Outcast) if I get around to it.