In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (Post 2)

If books are drugs, I'm totally addicted to this one. In the Forests of the Night is very engaging in the main charter and switches between past and present so we have a feeling for what she has been through and was she is doing today. Since Risika is a vampire the span of her life since a few days before her death is untold of so far in the novel, covering her in mystery but she died in 1701, so we can assume she has been "undead" for a while. Risika is an interesting character that changes over the course of the text with her, thoughts, actions, and outlook. Even though one of the biggest changes is obvious, that she became a vampire, I wish to go more in depth on smaller changes she has had.

Earlier in the novel she was strong and cunning and didn’t even think about the actions of which she did. "The next day would be my last day in the world- my last day to speak with my papa, my sister, or my brother, and my last day to thank the sun for giving light to my days... And, like all humanity, never once would I thank the sun or the air for its existence. Light, air, and my brother's love- I took them all for granted, and someone took them all away." (Atwater-Rhodes, 26) After she took a black rose from a stranger which cut her and when her blood fell upon the flower, she made a pack with a dark force. Meaning the next day she would die and rise again undead. She just thought of all the things she never thought of and thanked before, most things we never think of such as; the air we breathe, the sun that gives us light, our families and their love. All this truly shows she does care about the world and her family and what pain she will experience when she rises again.

Earlier Risika's undead mother went about a whole speech about hunting and how she must do it to survive (Post 1), but yet she still refused to hunt, for she thought it was wrong. “Hunt. The word sent dread through me. It reminded me of wolves and cougars, animals who stalked their prey in the forest. Blood soaking into the ground. So much blood... Now I wanted that blood. I could see the scarlet death in my mind. Surely the blood is warm and sweet and- What was happening to me? These thoughts were not mine, were they?... I knew what Ather meant when she said hunt, but i would not kill to ease my own pain. I was not an animal." (Atwater-Rhodes, 57-58) Here even though Risika is in a great deal of pain she will not hunt other animals and people to get the blood and the nutrients she needs as a vampires, she fights against instincts she has, yet later she accepts the killing for her food is right and just because we do the same to animals which we eat. We raise them take care of them then kill and eat them. That is how she now views the hunt. "This human's blood was thick and hot, boiling with pure life and energy. It wet my parched mouth and brought down my fever, and I drank it like a healing ambrosia." (Atwater-Rhodes, 71) Not just a little while after she decided it was wrong to drink the blood of another and kill, she did just that, she enjoyed in and loved drinking it for it caused much of her pain the flee. She continues to hunt now after that first kill in her past, she doesn’t even consider them people anymore, she thinks of them as toys, of which can be disposed of whenever she wishes so.

Over the text, even though I am only half way through the novel, Risika has changed so much. It excites me to think she may change even more later in the story to rise to more power and heights in the vampire world, or risk herself for mankind when she thinks of the fight she had in the past. I will have to keep reading to find out!




The Amazon page for this novel with back of book, order for if you wish to buy it, book suggestions and more.
In the Forests of the Night Amazon page

A teen reveiw page for this book, with a short summary and some thoughts intertwined into the short reveiw.
Teen reveiw for  In the Forests of the Night

The title of this book matches up with a line in a famous peom, if you read the book the allusions will make sense.
The Tyger by William Blake