The Revival by Chris Weitz

Series: The Young World Trilogy (bk. 3) Final Book

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: post-apocalyptic, survival, viruses, love, adventure

Setting: New York City

POV/Tense: 1st person past tense rotating between Jefferson, Donna, Peter, Evan and Kath, mainly, and interludes from Brainbox, Rab, and Imani

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 258 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: Hachette: Little, Brown

Summary/ product description: “The teens survived a mysterious catastrophe in The Young World, brought the cure back home in The New Order, and now must forge a new world in this fast-paced conclusion from acclaimed film director Chris Weitz.

The teens forge a new world in this epic conclusion to The Young World trilogy.

After the emotional cliffhanger of The New Order, shocking events take place for Donna, Jefferson, Kath, and their tribe as they face their greatest challenge yet--how to hold the new city-state of New York against a ruthless attack from the Old World.

Heart-stopping action and exciting new revelations will leave readers hungry for the final installment in the series.”

My Review:  The Revival is the finale to the Young World trilogy. If you have not read this series, it’s set in a post-epidemic version of New York City in which only kids and teen survived the plaque. I recommend this to fans of the Gone series by Michael Grant, The 5th Wave, The Hunger Games, Divergent, Maximum Ride, Quarantine by Lex Thomas, Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne, No Easy Way Out by Dayna Lorentz, Inhuman by Kat Fall, The Murder Complex by Lindsey Cummings, Taken by Erin Bowman, and other dystopian book.

Donna is back in New York City and with her comes some of the people she met in Cambridge, including Rab, the guy “seduced” her to get information. There’s Titch who’s a burly guy, there’s Guja, a Nepalese mercenary, and a few other. Jefferson, the leader of the group of kids who lived in Washington Square, was pinning for Donna to come back and Kath says he should get over her. Kath and Jefferson had a thing for a while. Peter is mad that Chapel, a guy who he thought her was in love with, betrayed him, and possibly also just seduced him for information. Evan, Kath’s brother, from Uptown, is a sociopath and has some nefarious plans.

This book series is full of humor and action. This is one of the most fun dystopian book series you will ever read. It’s a little bit like the Gone series at first, minus the super power. I love that we get different first person perspectives. The male POV are in a serif and female in san-serif a typeface. The chapter headers have a weapon silhouette behind the character name. I recall the first book was all Jefferson and Donna, but here we get Peter, Kath, Evan, Imani, Brainbox, and Rab. Some of them only get 1 or 2 chapters.

This book also brings up a lot of social issues like race, gender and sexuality, and it does it with humor. Some of the characters are clearly a bit racist, but most are just trying to survive and don’t care about that stuff. There’s just a extremely diverse cast of characters that the author created, maybe unreality so. I don’t think that it’s a very realist story, even if there was a virus that killed all the adult and kids had to survive. Yes, there would be cliques and gangs, but some of the story does seem silly, but this is fiction and I enjoyed it.

The book ended in an acceptable way. We didn’t get to see what happed 6 months later or whatever future would happen, but the character definitely had some kind of resolution. A climatic scene, and showdown, some sad deaths, some romance. It’s a pretty good finale and I will miss this series, but there’s always more to read.

Cover Art Review: Cool cover, as always with this series. I like that awesome samurai sword that the guy in the middle, who is probably Jefferson, is holding.

In the End by Demitria Lunetta

Series: In the After (bk. 2)

Genera: Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: post-apocalyptic, survival, monsters, viruses

Setting: Fort Black Prison, Texas

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, present tense: Amy

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 432 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover/Paperback

List Price: $17.99/$9.99

Publisher: HarperTeen

Summary/ product description: “She thought it was the end of the world... But it was only the beginning of the end.

It's been three months since Amy escaped New Hope. Since she's seen Baby, or Kay, or Rice. And she's been surviving on her own, like she did before she was "rescued" and taken to what she thought was a safe haven. Then, in the midst of foraging for supplies, her former fellow Guardian's voice rings out in her earpiece. And in a desperate tone, Kay utters the four words Any had hoped she would never hear:

Dr. Reynolds has Baby.

Now it's a race against time, for Baby is in imminent danger, her life threatened by the malevolent doctor who had helped start the end of the world. In order to save Baby, Amy will have to make her way to Fort Black, a former prison-turned-survivor colony. There she will need to find Ken—Kay's brother—for he holds the key to Baby's survival.

But before she can do any of this, she'll have to endure the darkest places—and people—of the prison. And one small slip-up could not only cost Baby and Amy their lives, but threaten the survival of he people in the After.

Demitria Lunetta has created an utterly compelling conclusion to the story she set forth in In the After. Readers of the Hunger Games trilogy will not be able to pit down this book, which is gripping from beginning to end.”

My Review:  In the End is the sequel-finale to In the After. Amy goes to a prison called Fort Black to find Kay’s twin brother, who’s a doctor, hoping he can help save Baby. Fort Black may be safe from Florae (the monsters created by a disease, similar to zombies, but look like aliens), but inside it has all kinds of threat, such as the previous inmates that decided to stay for their own protection.

Amy has a run in with a convict called Tank, who only stops harassing her when the Warden’s nephew, Jacks, arrives. Jacks was an up-and-coming tattoo artist before the outbreak. He’s a pretty nice and protective guy. He’s different from Rice, who was Amy’s previous love interest. Jacks pretends that he claimed Amy as his own to protect her from sexual harassment from other convicts. She doesn’t like the idea of being a guy’s property, but inside the prison walls they’re not exactly feminists, except maybe Brenna, who’s the only female fighter inside their UFC-like fighting arena.

I thought that this was a pretty good sequel. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first book. There was more mystery and scary-stuff in the first book. We were lead to believe the Florae were aliens, but that wasn’t the case. This book definitely has a unique setting. I don’t think I’ve ever read a dystopian set in a prison. A military base, a school, a mall, a superstore, but never a prison. It definitely would provide protection from outside threats, especially plant-like zombies with super hearing, but no eye sight.

If you have not read In The After, you shouldn’t have read this review because I spoiled stuff from In The After, but no spoiler for this book. I recommend this duology series to fans of The 5^th Wave, Rot & Ruin, Divergent, Ashfall, The 5th Wave, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, and any other survival/dystopian novel. If you love dystopia and post-apocalyptic books, this is a great series.

Cover Art Review: Interesting use of textures. Feels gritty and creepy.

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Braken

Series: The Darkest Minds (bk. 1)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi/Paranormal

Subjects: psychic ability, supernatural, telepathy

Setting: West Virginia and Virginia

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, past tense: Ruby Daly

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 488 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover & Paperback

List Price: $17.99/$9.99

Publisher: Hyperion

Summary/ product description: “When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living.”

My Review:  I've had this book sitting on my shelf since it came out in 2012. Now I have the whole series and I finally read the first book. The Darkest Minds was a good book. I took it on my camping trip but only got to page 50. I should have known that I never get any reading done when I’m camping. It took me a while to finish this book because I was so busy, but I shouldn’t judge this book for that reason. Yes it’s very long, but the story was interesting. It had some great characters. I just wish I read it sooner.

Ruby was a good narrator. She reminded me a lot of Juliette from Shatter Me. She had an issue with touching people too. Ruby is and Orange, which means she’s telepathic and can control people too. She doesn’t know how to control her power. She’s accidently erased people’s memories before, and this scares her. At her camp she is thought to be a Green with photographic memory abilities. She fooled the people that sorted her. A woman named Cate helps her escape, but then she also escapes Kate and meets Liam, Zu and Chubs.

The most interesting character was Chubs. He was (maybe African-American? Maybe Indian?) a bit of a nerd. Supposedly he used to be fat before going into the camp. He was serious in demeanor but also said some of the most hilarious things. He’s that lovable best friend character. He because friends with Liam in camp. They both are Blues, which means they have telekinesis. Chubs didn’t use his power really.

Liam is a southern gentle man. He makes me think of Tucker from Unearthly, who was a cowboy kind off. Maybe I feel like I love Liam because I just watch the Longest Ride movie (with a hot bull Rider named Luke) and I watch Nashville on ABC. I just love country boys. Liam was also a very good person and sees the best in people. He also drove a van he called Black Betty in the book.

Zu or Suzume is a Yellow. She can control electricity, but hasn’t got a grip on her power. She doesn’t talk, just writes what she wants to say. She also like clothes and the color pink and tries to dress Ruby up in the book. She was such a sweet character. She reminded me of Baby from In The After by Demetria Lunetta.

The world building is pretty interesting. It’s set in the near future, maybe 7 years after a virus called IAAN kill most kids in America and leave the survivors with abilities. The survivors are sent to camps and given a color based on their ability. Pretty soon only the Blues and Greens are left in Ruby’s camp. The camps reminded me of Reboot by Amy Tintera, with was about a virus that made teens come back to life stronger. So if you liked Reboot or Shatter Me, then you may enjoy this book too.

Cover Art Review: Gorgeous use of texture and the Psi symbol.