DNF: Theo and the Forbidden Language by Melanie Ansley

Theo and the Forbidden Language
written by Melanie Ansley
published by Melanie Ansley, 2014

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Where I stopped reading: location 1016 of 3723 (27%) on my Kindle

Why I stopped reading: I thought the gory murder scenes contrasted a bit too much with the fluffy bunny characters, but when a human announced his plan to forcibly create an heir via a rabbit I slowly closed the book and backed away.

 

What others have rated this book: According to Goodreads, the average rating for this book is 4.16 stars. It looks like a majority of readers gave this book 5 stars. 63% of the 38 reviews on Amazon were five-star ratings. There are no reviews posted at Barnes & Noble. Just because I didn’t finish this book doesn’t mean you won’t.

About the book – from Goodreads: In the isolated rabbit village of Willago, introverted Theo has a secret. Even though reading and writing were long ago outlawed as sorcery, Theo can’t resist the books hidden in the family cupboard. When a mysterious owl arrives with a priceless collar, all the rabbits try to unlock it, but fail. Theo is the only one to realize it’s a word puzzle, and rearranges the collar’s stones to form a sentence. When the village elders learn that Theo has broken the law yet again, they imprison him.

In the dead of night he is freed by Brune, an axe-wielding bear who believes Theo has a different destiny. They escape to Mankahar, a land where the human empire is robbing animals of speech using a poison called “pacification.” The empire will march to the furthest corners of the land, enslaving all animals to use on their farms, including the rabbits of Willago. The only thing standing in the empire’s way is the Order, a society of free animals determined to defend their way of life. Brune, a member of the Order, convinces Theo to join him in their fight.

But Brune’s cause proves dangerous. Whom can Theo trust, when the empire punishes those who read or write with death? Worse, his fellow animals view the written word as sacrilegious. As the battle for Mankahar’s fate looms, Theo must risk everything—including love—to learn the full power of the forbidden language, or be silenced forever.