No Dawn Without Darkness by Dayna Lorentz

Series: No Safety in Numbers (bk. 3)

Genera(s): Dystopian/Sci-fi Thriller

Subjects: viruses, quarantine, shopping malls, survival

Setting: Upstate New York, a mall called Shops at Stonecliff

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, Present tense, rotating between Ginger, Ryan, Shay, and Marco. Plus The Senator.

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 232 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover 

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Penguin: Kathy Dawson Books

Summary/ product description: “Perfect for fans of Life As We Knew It and Michael Grant's Gone--this conclusion to the No Safety in Numbers trilogy will make your heart race, your palms sweat, and will leave you wondering exactly what you'd be willing to sacrifice in order to survive.

First--a bomb released a deadly flu virus and the entire mall was quarantined.

Next--the medical teams evacuated and the windows were boarded up just before the virus mutated.

Now--the power is out and the mall is thrown into darkness. Shay, Marco, Lexi, Ryan, and Ginger aren't the same people they were two weeks ago. Just like the virus, they've had to change in order to survive. And not all for the better. When no one can see your face, you can be anyone you want to be, and, when the doors finally open, they may not like what they've become.

If you think it's silly to be afraid of the dark, you're wrong.

Very wrong.”

My Review:  A definite improvement over the second book, No Easy Ways Out, which was excruciatingly long. No Dawn Without Darkness is a quick read, only 232 pages long. It’s a thrilling conclusion to an interesting dystopian series set inside a mega-mall.

What also made it a great finale was that the author wrote in 1^st person this time. The first two books were written in 3^rd person, which I’m not a fan of most of the time. This is such a major change. I don’t know why the author made this change. Maybe she read my review or other reviews and decided to improve her style. This made me wish that all the books were in 1^st person. You get such a deeper perspective into the emotions and thoughts of a character through 1^st person narration. We got to see Ginger, Ryan, Shay and Marco’s POVs. No Lexi 1^st person POV. We also got voice recordings from the Senator, and interviews of the quarantine survivors.

Most of the book does take place in the mall, but a major chunk of it is after-the-fact. How does experiencing quarantine affect a person once they leave? How does one go about living their life? Can you ever feel normal again? We got to see how the character coped. I feel like the climax happened a bit early on, and that maybe the rest of it could have been shorter. Maybe part the previous book could have been the beginning of this book.

If you didn’t enjoy the previous book you shouldn’t feel intimidated with reading this last book. It’s a good ending. It’s not boring. It wraps things up and gives you closure. Maybe it’s not worth buying, but check it out or borrow it. You won’t be disappointed.

If you haven’t read No Easy Way Out, then you may like it if you enjoy thrilling dystopia books. If you liked Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne, or the Quarantine series by Lex Thomas, thins book share some similarities. This series is very realistic and the quarantine was caused by a terrorist attack. There are no zombies. Just a virus. If you saw the movie Contagion, it’s like that, but in a mall setting. The mall is in upstate New York, but similar to the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which I’ve been too. It’s a suffocating kind of dystopian setting, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Cover Art Review: Simple, fits with the previous book’s covers. I like the blue, but still it’s not the kind of cover I’d buy a book based off of. Show me a mall with people and wreckage.

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. 

Sky On Fire by Emmy Laybourne

Series: Monument 14 (bk. 2)

Genera: Dystopian Sci-Fi

Subjects: survival, post-apocalyptic, stores, Colorado

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 215 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Macmillan: Feiwel & Friends

Summary/ product description: “Trapped in a superstore by a series of escalating disasters, including a monster hailstorm and terrifying chemical weapons spill, brothers Dean and Alex learned how to survive and worked together with twelve other kids to build a refuge from the chaos. But then strangers appeared, destroying their fragile peace, and bringing both fresh disaster and a glimmer of hope.
Knowing that the chemical weapons saturating the air outside will turn him into a bloodthirsty rage monster, Dean decides to stay in the safety of the store with Astrid and some of the younger kids. But their sanctuary has already been breached once. . . .
Meanwhile, Alex, determined to find their parents, heads out into the darkness and devastation with Niko and some others in a recently repaired school bus. If they can get to Denver International Airport, they might be evacuated to safety. But the outside world is even worse than they expected. . . .”

 

My Review: I enjoyed this short, fast paced sequel and I wasn’t entirely sure if there was a 3^rd book, because the ending seemed to wrap things up. But there is a 3^rd book, called Savage Drift. I will of course read it next year when it comes out. Still, I enjoyed the 1^st book more because a lot more survival stuff happened, it being the 1^st book and all.

I liked how the story switched between Dean and Alex’s 1^st person perspectives. They have such distinct voices because Dean is 16 and Alex is 13. Dean was the only narrator of the 1^st book. Alex’s perspective was in a condensed san-serif typeface that wasn’t really the best type to use for body copy. I still enjoyed it.

The pacing of this story was great. Maybe a bit too fast. I feel like the book could have been longer, but sometimes short is good. I read the 2 short stories before this, which were only about 30 pages each. I didn’t like them because they were in 3^rd person, but they gave good background info on the chemical and what Jake was doing.

Some people think the characters are one-dimensional or something. They seemed well developed to me. They have their own personalities. Emmy really knows how to make characters that act their age. And they are pretty funny sometimes. You got to watch and listen to little kids to know how they behave. They story seems well researched.

I loved the way she chose to make the chemical affect different blood-types differently. That was very creative. Better than making everyone raging zombies (Only the type Os). This made if an effective and realistic survival story. Also, there’s a rubber eating fungus, which was cool and kind of gross.

I like the setting because I’ve been to Colorado. The Denver/Aurora area to be specific. I could picture the dark and decimated world. And the fact that it’s 10 years in the future only makes it more relatable.

Overall, great story. Similar to Quarantine by Lex Thomas and No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz and Ashfall by Mike Mullin. If you like survival stories or post-apocalyptic stories, you’ll enjoy this series.

Cover Art Review: Perfect cover. The bus that many of the kids are on and the white tire-eating fungus and the dark sky. It’s a well done post-apocalyptic illustration.