Kalahari by Jessica Khoury

I’ll be honest, it was the pretty, vibrant colors and the fierce lion on the cover that originally caught my attention and convinced me to buy the book. I purchased it at a resale, library event (I think. I’m not totally sure what the event was) but I saw the book on the table and I wanted it, that’s it. I wanted the pretty cover. I don’t remember if I read the back blurb or not. 

After I arrived home, at some point, I picked up the book and decided to read it. At the time, I didn’t realize it was part of a standalone series, I just thought it was a standalone without any other books attached to it but there are two more books in the series, the first is titled Origin and the second is Vitro, neither of which I’ve read yet.

The story is set in the Kalahari Desert, hence the title of the book, and it starts with the main character, Sarah, as she waits for a plane carrying five other teenagers - or incompetent city kids, as she calls them later - who also happen to be main characters.

Sarah shoos a pride of lions away from the landing strip and begins talking to Theo, another character, about how she’s not looking forward to having the five teenagers there at her family’s camp. 

Sarah prefers animals over people. 

It took me a few chapters to like Sarah but after a while, I found her to be very brave. She’s got moxie and she’s a survivor. As the story goes on, she becomes a reluctant, slightly annoyed mother bear to the other main characters, and though her emotional journey is like a roller coaster, she’s a great narrator. 

The entire story is told from her POV, and it's in first person. 

The other characters are enjoyable too, strangers who came to the Kalahari for different reasons, who have no idea what they’re doing but their banter was amusing and their backstories are fascinating. I especially enjoyed Joey, a classic jokester, and Avani, a sweet know-it-all, who’s catchphrase might as well be “semidesert.” The two played off each other well. 

Theo is another character I really loved. He’s not in most of the story but the way Sarah describes him and feels about him, definitely makes him lovable. And his teachings are very helpful throughout the story.

In one of the beginning scenes, as the action starts to move forward, he and Sarah’s father drive away from the camp to go search for poachers and as the truck - named Hank - speeds off, Theo waves to Sarah cheerfully. The description says “You’d have thought he was going on a picnic.” 

I love characters who love the general danger of their regular lives. 

I also liked Sam, one of the five teenagers and Sarah’s love interest. He’s very nice and even-tempered. I really love how he and Sarah fall for each other. They make a good team. 

But my favorite part of the entire book was the details of the surroundings. The Kalahari is beautiful, the plants and the sky, and the added interactions with various animals was incredible, very well done. In chapter two and three, a monkey, a porcupine, and a warthog make appearances. 

The monkey is first, it tries to steal food from the group, and Sarah, calmly, returns the monkey to his monkey-buddies, at which point, she says to the reader, “People who say that animals don’t have emotions have never seen the expression on the face of an insulted monkey.” I love that. 

I don’t want to give any spoilers or reveal anything too important but I will say, the ending is really fun, fast-paced, epic and chaotic. As the story progressed, all I wanted to do was read more, find out the answers to questions dangling in front of me, and I was disappointed when the story came to an end which is the mark of a great book.

Kalahari by Jessica Khoury is such an exciting read. I definitely recommend it.