Hello Shiquers and welcome back to Nerdy Shique Universe! It is time for another book review!

Title: Bannerless
Author: Carrie Vaughn

Disclaimer: This review is based on thoughts and opinion of the lead writer. Please respect her thoughts and opinions on this book! Spoilers might be ahead.

Synopsis: This story takes place in a dystopian future where population control takes place after economic and environmental problems in the United States cause people to rely on birth control and have households in order to take care of children and earn symbolic banners to prove that they can take care of the children they bare.

We meet Enid Haven, an investigator, along with her buddy Thomas who get called out to a town where a person was killed and must figure out what had happened to him and what the townsfolk might have done leading up to the death. As she investigates the case, she ends up running into an old love who is a minstrel that she traveled while she was younger and had left after a storm taking place and she wonders if this old love had committed murder or he knows something that she didn’t?

Thoughts: This book was a major surprise for me while I was reading it. I wasn’t expecting it to be set in a dystopian future since it felt more like a Colonial-type period but as I read on I did notice that they still had technology and that was used through solar power, especially with cars. It did bring bartering and working for goods back into this and I can see how the economical problems of the past led to this and how the environment changes when typhoon-like weather can hit the areas, especially later on in the book where Enid and Dack, the minstrel she reunited with, went through a storm while traveling back to Haven which is the household she lived in when she was younger.

Besides knowing about the environment, I did like how there was backstory to Enid’s life in how she became an investigator which at first she didn’t know what to do and wanted to run off to travel before she settled with anyone and thought it would be with Dack but along the way she noticed that she had made thoughts and had feelings that being with a minstrel was not a good idea, heck even when Thomas was younger before she joined even warned her about Dack and that minstrels aren’t always the best. This did build up her character into the more demanding personality that we get to see in the more present story and it does go back and forth showing what she was like then and then present to balance out between her past and the current situation in how she couldn’t handle her jealousy with how people were falling for Dack to how she was handling with other people in the case and how they were acting a bit close-offish from her and Thomas wwhile they were gathering clues. I think this book is trying to say, “Be careful who to trust and how to trust them despite what they are telling you.” And I like that in a sense since there are times where mystery stories do take that idea and love to roll with it.

I hope Vaughn keeps on writing books like these or even do a sequel since this was a pretty good read. I liked the idea that they are in a world where they have to work for their keep and for a banner and sometimes people would like to bribe or cheat in order to get that banner to show off their status. Plus, it does paint a picture of what our world might end up if we keep on going the rate we are going as in hard economic times even though it is slightly improving but the environmental changes are weird and we are seeing it more. So, it is an interesting thing to think about when we might end up in this kind of world. I would say give it a read if interested.

Rating: 5 Out of 5 Star Pawprints! This was a very light and easy read. I did like the setting, I like how the idea of this world it painted and of course I did like how the characters interacted with each other. As in, people mistrusted each other in the case, no one wants to talk about what goes on in the households, etc. It also gives us backstory to link to the character’s current situation which made it an interesting read. I would like to read more by Carrie Vaughn and see what else she has written in the past and anything else coming up!

That is it for this review! Check out Bannerless if you can!