Review: The Ward by Jordana Frankel

The Ward by Jordana Frankel

The Ward #1

Release Date: April 30^th, 2013

Number of Pages: 480

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Source: Edelweiss

GR – Amazon – BD – Indigo

Sixteen-year-old Ren is a daredevil mobile racer who will risk everything to survive in the Ward, what remains of a water-logged Manhattan. To save her sister, who is suffering from a deadly illness thought to be caused by years of pollution, Ren accepts a secret mission from the government: to search for a freshwater source in the Ward, with the hope of it leading to a cure.  

However, she never expects that her search will lead to dangerous encounters with a passionate young scientist; a web of deceit and lies; and an earth-shattering mystery that’s lurking deep beneath the water’s rippling surface.  

Jordana Frankel’s ambitious debut novel and the first in a two-book series, The Ward is arresting, cinematic, and thrilling—perfect for fans of Scott Westerfeld or Ann Aguirre. 

The Ward was one of those books I find so hard to review. It is the kind of book that simply didn’t impress me. I was so excited to get my hands on this book, as I loved dystopian novels. Yet, it failed to impress me. I was just looking for more out of this book, and I found the book to be missing out a little something to really get me hooked. The premise sounded really interesting, but I felt let down by the lack of world building. In dystopian, world building is kind of a big deal for me. If that part doesn’t work out in a book, then the book itself falls flat for me. Then there is the fact that there seems to be a little too much going on, making the book more than simply dystopian.

Characterwise, I’m a little torn. Ren was interesting, but there were some aspect of her personality that really put me of. I liked her relationship with Aven, and found her to be a strong character when it came down to the races and everything related to that. Yet, her feelings for Derek put me off a little. The way she reacted to his friend-who-happen-to-be-a-girl made me roll my eyes a few times. Despite those moments, I did root for her, and I did like her. And yes, I did want her to end up with Derek, because I did like him. I found him to be a really interesting character, and I wanted to see him even more.

Overall, The Ward simply didn’t impress me enough to love it. I felt a little let down by this book. The story failed to really captivate me. I do have to give props to Jordana Frankel for managing to give the readers a few really great twits I had not expected. I will still probably give the sequel a shot (if only because the ending made me curious), but it won’t be at the top of my reading pile.

About the Author

From GoodReads

Jordana Frankel is a Jersey native.

She's been a camp counselor, a salesperson of diamonds, a hostess at a southwestern grill, an archivist of rare books, a yoga instructor, and a reading teacher, but her shining moment was when she got to hang out in Walmart for 12 hours a day as the AXE girl.

She received her B.A. in English from Goucher College, graduated and then went to live in Italy for a year. Afterwards she then went for her MFA in Poetry at Hollins University.

But then she graduated and she moved back to NYC.

She got her first job at The Literary Group International as a literary agency, where she'd started as an intern reading queries and then assisted editorially. At Linn Prentis Literary, also a literary agency, she handled foreign sales, picked up gems from unsolicited mail, and helped authors through the publishing process. And then it was onto The Book Report Network where she handled ads and promos for features on Teenreads.com, Kidsreads.com, and GraphicNovelReporter.com.

Her Website

Her Twitter