No Easy Way Out by Dayna Lorentz

Series: No Safety in Numbers (bk. 2)

Genera: Dystopian Sci-fi/Thriller

Subjects: shopping mall, quarantines, viruses, diseases, survival

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 470 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Penguin: Dial

Summary/ product description: “It's Day 7 in the quarantined mall. The riot is over and the senator trapped inside is determined to end the chaos. Even with new rules, assigned jobs, and heightened security, she still needs to get the teen population under control. So she enlists Marco's help--allowing him to keep his stolen universal card key in exchange for spying on the very football players who are protecting him.

But someone is working against the new systems, targeting the teens, and putting the entire mall in even more danger. Lexi, Marco, Ryan, and Shay believe their new alliances are sound.

They are wrong. Who can be trusted? And who will be left to trust?

The virus was just the beginning.

Fans of Life As We Knew It and those who love apocalyptic plots will love this modern Lord of the Flies. The sequel to No Safety in Numbers is a pounding, relentless rush that will break your heart and keep you guessing until the end.”

My Review: This book was excruciatingly long. I probably picked a bad week to read it, it being the first week of school and work, but even if I did have more free time it would have taken me a while to finish. It took me a week. The first book was pretty good (No Safety in Numbers, I gave it 4 stars) and about half the length and had way more interesting things happen in it. Not much really happened in this book that was even notable. It was so dragged.

There was some romance between Ryan and Shy, and Lexi and Marco, but not enough to qualify it as sexy. It was awkward, and a bit unnecessary. The characters seemed very flat, even with their diversity.

I was looking for a sci-fi thriller. The fear that was in the first book. This one lacked the thrill. I always have a hard time with books written in 3^rd person, and even more trouble if the mind-jump. The first book was split up into chapters by the character’s perspective. This one was split up by time of day, and the chapters jumped between perspectives. It was confusing and annoying.

I did enjoy the setting still. A dystopia/quarantine in a mall? That would be way cooler than one in a school. This series does have similarities to other books. It’s most like the Quarantine series by Lex Thomas, but with a setting more similar to Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne. The Gone series by Michael Grant also shares some similarities. If you liked any of those books, I suggest you read No Safety in Numbers, the first book in this series, and try to read No Easy Way Out right after. Make such you have the time to get into them.

Cover Art Review: Boring cover. Too simple and I don’t like the colors or textures. It’s newspaper/magazine like. Cheesy, bad typography.