Book Review: Children of the Outback by Amanda N. Newman

Whew! The twists in this one!

Released: November 23, 2020

Genre: Dystopian, Dark Fantasy

Age: 18 and up

Trigger Warnings: contains dark themes that some individuals may find upsetting or disturbing. This includes but is not limited to references and/or depictions of self-harm, torture, rape, sexual assault, abuse, child-loss, mental illness, suicide, etc. Reader discretion is advised.

At twelve years old, Grace Walker, the only daughter of a government maintenance worker, was kidnapped by a gang of Bitzer's and condemned to a lifetime of servitude in the Outback. Now, four years later, it is time for her slavery to begin, time for her to receive a front-row seat to the hell that a group of dark magic wielders known as the Dingoes created in the Outback. As the journey into her new life as a slave to "one of the most ruthless torturers in the Outback" starts to unfold, she begins to learn more about the mysterious Dingoes and is forced to take a good look at the life that was taken from her when she was kidnapped. Is the Republic really the utopia everyone wanted it to be? Have the Dingoes really created a hell on earth or merely protected “their” people?

Amanda N. Newman

Amanda N. Newman is the author of the Hybrid Empire series and Children of the Outback. She has been writing since she was a child. As a quiet person who didn't make friends easily, while also battling social and general anxiety and depression, she found refuge in writing. She first started handwriting alternate universe style crossover fanfiction featuring her favorite characters from various video games, anime/manga, television shows, and other books, though she never shared any of these stories on any public forums. As her stories became longer and more intricate, she branched away from and adapted her stories from fanfiction and into different subgenres of fantasy fiction. In her final year of high school, she wrote her first original novel Hybrid Empire, a paranormal fantasy about an international student trying to fit in at a fictitious boarding school in Alaska.

What I Love

Um, it's in Australia! As soon as I saw the title, I just knew I was in for a good one! I love this dystopian sort of wasteland Australia had become and how a new society grew from that. I love the play on the word Dingo to mean a group of violent people hell-bent on kidnapping and enslaving. I love the fact that nothing is like what it seems with this book or this story. There was always some sort of underlying reason, and the amount of deception was infuriating, but in a good way. Like I’ve said before, if I want to go into the book and slap fire out of characters, then you are doing well in my book! I love the relationship that developed between Grace and Rudy. It was a little...suspect at first, being I felt the immediate connection and touchy feelyness of Grace was rather quick, and her being young, but I love the depth of the character Rudy, as well as, his brother which there was a MAJOR twist in there with him, and I am LIVING for it! It blew my mind the number of lies and tricks people told, all while instilling magic. For the record, I see what Grace’s brothers were trying to do, but….no… The magic system in this book is unique and I love the take on it. Amanda has a great new and fresh way of creating something that we’ve seen time and time again, and it's pretty good!

What I Don’t

This is just my personal taste on people, but I will say, while I felt for Grace, she made me want to shake her at times. I had to remind myself that she was young when she was kidnapped, terrified of being raped, and had been raised to believe something completely different about the Dingoes and Bitzer's. But man...it took her so long to defeat the truth and the way she was doing Rudy at first. She got better as the story goes and she gained strength to her that was definitely beneficial and put her back in my good graces for a minute.

Rating: 4.3 out of 5

I would definitely recommend this book! Amanda isn’t new to the game, but this is I believe the beginning of a new series that I am excited to see where it goes!