Little One

by Nate Philbrick

When the evacuation of a war-torn town goes wrong and separates Daniel from his three-year-old sister, Litty, Daniel is determined to do whatever it takes to get her back. To do so, Daniel will have to survive both the deadly Akorian wilderness and a ruthless military commander and come to grips with the blood on his own hands. In a world where nature is a deadly force and the line between war and sport is blurred, freedom comes at a high cost.

Fear, sorrow, loss, hope...Little One delves into the human emotions with a vengeance and has readers on the edge of their seats.

Genres: Fantasy

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 2015

About the author

Reader, minimalistic fantasy author, and digital artist.

Reviews

[Sarah Grace Grzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars (I think.) I quite honestly don't know what to think, because my heart is still recovering from the emotional trauma I was just put through.

OKAY THEN! Moving on . . .

Let's start with characters. Litty. Y'all. I have never read a book with a cuter, sweeter, more adorable character! Philbrick does a great job accurately portraying a 3-year-old little girl. From page one, I was in love. I could totally picture her facial expressions, and almost hear her adorable giggle. And my heart just about died when Daniel realized she had been left on the train platform. Overall, extremely well done. I almost want to give the book 5 stars, just because of her character. My second favorite character is definitely Ram. His tough-guy, but teddy bear personality was adorable and hilarious. There were so many witty lines of his that I couldn't help but snicker at. I wasn't a huge fan of Daniel's character (The MC); I feel like he needed a little more emotion and "umph" to really make him a truly well-rounded character. So he was a little disappointing in that regard. But I loved his relationship with Litty; I am always a sucker for brother\sister relationships, and I loved this one! His fierce love for her was so sweet, and his protectiveness was so heartwarming. I wish that the backstory as to why he was so desperate to protect her had been told sooner in the book, and had been expounded on a little more, which would have really helped me to understand his character a lot better.
Moriah, Tess, and Koldin were all great supporting characters. Again, I feel like Tess's (and even Moriah and Koldin's characters, although they were less important than Tess.) character and emotions could have been fleshed out a little better to make her more relatable.
And Maravek - goodness! What a villain! He was just like . . . wow! What's with that guy!? Also, I think Kora needed a little more explanation for her actions and emotions. I didn't really get what her deal was throughout most of the book. She needed more than just the driving will to live to be her motivation, in my opinion anyway.

The story overall was quite excellent, but in my opinion, it could have been executed better. There was a lot of running from snapjaws (which, by the way, were quite creepy!), being safe for two pages, running from wolves, being safe for 3 pages, being chased by snapjaws - again, etc, etc. Any thing that could go wrong, did. Which was frustrating and somewhat repetitive. You could have cut out 100 pages and still had a 300 page story and caused the reader less frustration. Even though this book was basically all action, I found myself bored and skimming in parts, because really, WE WERE JUST CHASED BY CREEPY GIANT SPIDERS! AND NOW WE ARE BEING CHASED AGAIN?!?!

While very little world building was done, it wasn't terribly hard to jump into the story. I would have liked to have had a better understanding of the government, the world conditions, the "war" that was mentioned numerous times, etc. But, I was still able to enjoy the story even without that knowledge. The fictitious world in which the story was set, was quite fascinating; there were some modern elements, and even a few futuristic-ish things. I would classify it as fantasy dystopian; I haven't read any books set in that genre, so this was very interesting. It was a lot less depressing than your normal dystopian, which I liked. I mean, yeah, the MCs were running for their lives throughout the entire book, but the *whole world* wasn't in danger, which is often the case with dystopian novels.

I also really enjoyed Philbrick's writing style. His metaphors and analogies were beautiful and fascinating, and his word pictures were just fantastic. In some novels, it can be very hard for me to visualize what is happening, as I am a very visually-oriented person, but Philbrick's writing style is so visual, I could completely *see* what was happening, which I loved.
There were a fair amount of typos and grammatical and punctuation errors that bugged me a bit, but honestly, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as some indie novels I have read!

CONTENT NOTE: There is a fair amount of violence, characters getting shot in the head (not described), getting attacked by canine-sized carnivorous spiders and wolves, a character abandons another character, allowing them to be eaten by giant spiders, and a few knife wounds. Definitely wouldn't recommend this for anyone under the age of 15.

All in all, for an author's debut novel, this wasn't bad. There were definitely some things that needed tweaking, but I loved the story, and the writing style, and will definitely be checking out future works by Philbrick!

[Michael A. Gunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Little One” left me… well, many things, actually. It left me impressed (for several reasons), touched (Litty is such a sweet little kid), and scrambling for a genre to stick it in. And that’s just the beginning.

First off, anyone who’s had siblings will understand the main character (Daniel) remarkably well. Throughout the majority of the book, he’s trying to find and rescue his tiny (2 year old) sister. Having lost her in what is essentially a war-zone, he’s understandably single-minded; he’s going to get her back and the rest of the world can burn until he does. The level of panic written into Daniel’s character practically leaps off the page to grab the reader by the lapels.

The villain of the story is a work of art, as villains go. He’s not one of the ‘love to hate’ villains that are so popular. This bad guy is of the sort that makes you wish someone would put a bullet in him, because you’re not sure you can bear to read this next bit…

Interestingly, a few of the lesser protagonists (if we can call them such) aren’t much different. Without delving into the world of spoilers, I’ll just say that you’ll end up hating at least one of them almost as much as the ‘real’ bad guy.

Of course, in fine counterpoint to them, the author presents us with the main character’s best friend. ‘Ram’ is the Sam Gamgee of this story; stolid, unwaveringly brave (when it’s necessary), and loyal to the point of suicidal. Without him, the book would almost be too dark to read.

There were a few points which my attention fastened on and wondered “why”, but not many. The biggest question was why one of the many ‘good guys’ didn’t just shoot the bad guy in the 1st quarter of the book. It would have solved a lot of problems and there were several opportunities for them to do so. The main reason seems to have been ‘because we’re not killers’. However, as the bad guy had already tortured and murdered a whole village and went on to torture, almost-murder, and murder at least three more people in the course of the book… any question of removing him would have been less of morality and more of “do we put this rabid dog down or let it go on biting people?”. Of course, since removing him in the 1st act would mean there wouldn’t be a 2nd and 3rd act… I was quite happy to drown my question in the remaining 300 pages of the book.

As I said in my original review, ‘Little One’ made an impression. Enough of one that should I ever find the name “Nate Philbrick” on another novel, I’ll be picking it up on general principles.

[Rachel Lazar · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Her faded pink dress caught the dry summer breeze and flapped around her legs. Her honey-brown hair swept across her face, and with her free hand, she tried in vain to shove it out of the way." Such beautiful imagery is utilized within the first paragraphs of the first chapter. And it doesn't stop. The imagery is strong with this one. The unique descriptions that this work is chock full of is only one of the things I enjoyed. The characters were all different and deep. Though, I must say, I didn't understand the motives behind some of the more villainous characters (perhaps that is a good thing, ha!), but it seemed that many of them were more driven by pure insanity. At least, that's the way I looked at it. Little One is certainly not a Disney movie (obviously because it's a book), and that's an excellent thing. It is beautifully crafted, leaves with a message of new beginnings and hope, and gives you many feels (almost sounds like a Disney movie, right? But it isn't. Trust me). Many. Feels. The only thing I had difficulty with was how much violence there was. Which makes sense as it is a Dystopian. There is war between factions. There is war between people. But I did like how there was remorse for killing. There was questioning. There was trying to keep others from getting killed. I only feel sorry for the poor characters! They hardly got a moment of rest! This is an action-packed read that I'm glad I read.

[S.C. Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where to begin? Well, this story delivered all it promised from the blurb. There was acti0n, scary spidery monsters, people fighting for what they believed was right and some very distinct characters. Daniel and Ram, thrown together through dire circumstance, really jelled as companions, doing their best to help each other and find Litty, Daniel's lost sister. Kora was an unexpected character, who was driven by fear and self-preservation. Kerrigan was a Preceptor who followed the Order to the letter, until the evidence forced her to act. The 'bad guys', and I use this term very loosely, were not what I expected. There were no carboard cut-out characters in this book. Each and every person was striving to achieve their goals, believing whole heartedly they were doing the right thing. Nikolai, leader of the Akorites, was driven by past pain and loss. Preceptor Maravek was something else all together, a cold and selfish man, with his own dark agenda. I enjoyed the story, the plot was intriguing and different to my usual read.

There were a couple of small spelling mistakes and a slight issue with a deer turning into a horse in a following sentence, but this didn't dampen my enjoyment of the book. My only issue was the section breaks, which could have been a little more defined and clearer, so as not to confuse the reader, but all in all, I thoroughly reccommend this book. A great read.

[Spencer Howerton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book a lot and I would recommend this to a lot of people, I actually know Nathan Philbrick and I really do like this book not just because he's a friend it is because it is actually a fun and good book.

[Brandon Eastin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the various character plots coming together at the end around the theme of the little girl. Smooth writing style, clean content, loads of danger and pain, and was left wanting more. Needs an epilogue and a map.

[Faye Fite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dang. Good book. Loved the characters and the themes. Full review coming this Sunday.

[L. Woodswalker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A village is evacuated during the chaos of war and Daniel is separated from his beloved little sister Litty. He goes through harrowing ordeals, escaping guerilla bands, carnivorous spiders and literal cliff-hangers, to be re-united with her. But that's only the beginning, because a vengeful military officer has it out for Daniel. A cat and mouse game then ensues, with antagonists from both sides scouring the mountains for Daniel, his friend and poor little Litty.
The story moves at a swift and suspenseful pace. Daniel's love for his sister, and his heroic determination to rescue her, are the driving forces of this book. However, the story could have been more fleshed-out. Daniel is insanely brave and devoted to his sister, but aside from that I don't feel as if I really know him. The rest of the background also needs more development. We never learn much about the 'Akorites' or the wider world around the characters. The technology is contemporary, and nobody has any special magical gifts. I'm not sure what genre label this book is under; it felt more like simple 'young adult' than 'fantasy'.
This is a well-written tale. A few added brush-strokes could make it into a great one.

[Lou Grimm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this story. Philbrick has a unique turn of phrase and a compelling style and I was ever driven to keep turning pages.

There were a couple of contradictions (in the 'inky blackness' with sound 'drowned out by the pounding water below' we are told 'the forest was still'); some unrealistic behaviours (a military officer slinking away on her own mission because she disagrees with her superior); and a major action scene was so wordy I found characters becoming involved when I hadn't realised they were present.

But the plot drives the story forward at a steady pace. And it goes deeper than simple edge-of-seat tension - Philbrick's characters are real. I kept turning the pages because I know them.

I don't believe the book is a fantasy though - there were one or two fantastic elements but the words held centre stage, with pretty turns of phrase almost commonplace. Is there such a thing as literary action instead?

Despite the literary angle, Philbrick's characters were often to the point ('Knife in my belt,' she gasped). The story was intense and vivid, and Philbrick conveys his love of forests perfectly.

I think I've just read the first book from a future master.

[Abby Cashen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a bit on the heavy side but it held my interest to the end.

(Read full review here.)
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(Includes content advisory.)