Book Review: Nameless by Jennifer Jenkins

Nameless (Nameless #1)
Author:  Jennifer Jenkins
Publisher:  Month9Books
Publication Date:  October 6, 2015

From Goodreads:
Four clans have been at war for centuries: the Kodiak, the Raven, the Wolf and the Ram. Through brutal war tactics, the Ram have dominated the region, inflicting death and destruction on their neighbors.

Seventeen-year-old Zo is a Wolf and a Healer who volunteers to infiltrate the Ram as a spy on behalf of the allied clans. She offers herself as a Ram slave, joining the people who are called the “nameless.” Hers is a suicide mission – Zo’s despair after losing her parents in a Ram raid has left her seeking both revenge and an end to her own misery. But after her younger sister follows her into Rams Gate, Zo must find a way to survive her dangerous mission and keep her sister safe.

What she doesn’t expect to find is the friendship of a young Ram whose life she saves, the confusing feelings she develops for a Ram soldier, and an underground nameless insurrection. Zo learns that revenge, loyalty and love are more complicated than she ever imagined.

Review:

This book was familiar, but in a good way.  Think The Winner's Curse and An Ember in the Ashes.  Brutal Ram clan, where they raise their children to be warriors.  If you're not strong, you don't survive.  I'm not entirely clear about the world (the other clans, the war, etc.) but I'm assuming more will be revealed in the next book.  

I liked the slow romance building between Zo and Gryphon and how both of them are prejudiced against the other, have lived their whole lives believing the other is lesser, but how they both slowly realize they've been wrong.  I always love those enemies into love romances.

While I did like the book, I couldn't get past one thing.  Maybe it shouldn't have bothered me that much, but it just did.  Apparently Zo, being a Wolf, physically looks like a member of that clan.  So she wears mud over her face as a disguise (and also to hide her beauty from the men so she won't be raped).  All the time.  Two problems with this.  First, if the Rams are so worried about the Wolf clan and with their members infiltrating, why would they allow her to wear mud all over her face so they can't tell?  Second, she's a healer who wears mud all over her face when she's treating patients.  How does that make sense?  

Posted by:  Pam