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.

Rebellion by J. A. Souders

Series: The Elysium Chronicles (bk. 3)

Genera: Dystopian Sci-fi/Romance

Subjects: underwater colonies, Florida, love, memory, brain-washing, psychological, nanotechnology

Setting: Florida and a sea colony called Elysium

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, present tense, rotating between Evie and Gavin

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 333 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: MacMillan: TorTeen

Summary/ product description: “The thrilling conclusion to J. A. Souders’s riveting SF psychological thriller series for teens

In this conclusion to J. A. Souders’s thrilling, twist-filled Elysium Chronicles series, Evie Winters and Gavin Hunter return to the isolated, dangerous underwater city that they fought so hard to escape.

Back in Elysium at last, Evie has finally found her true-self hidden under layers and layers of false memories implanted by the woman she knew as Mother. Thanks to the intervention of her father, she knows the horrible truth about Mother and her insidious plans for her city. With the help of the love of her life, Gavin, and her best friend, Asher St. James, she’s determined to free her people from the cruel dictatorship of Mother’s laws. But how do you free people who don’t know they need rescuing?

Working with the growing Underground rebellion, Evie tries to remove Mother from her position by force—with disastrous results. As the body count rises, Evie must find a way to save Elysium before Mother destroys them all.”

My Review: Rebellion is the finale to the Elysium trilogy. If you are unfamiliar with the series, it’s set in an under water sea colony that used to be a resort, but then a woman who calls herself mother killed her father, the owner and took over. Evie is her daughter, but not by birth. Evie keeps getting her memories erased. There’s a boy named Gavin who comes from the surface and romance happens. I recommend it if you like dystopians or the idea of sea colonies. If you have not read the series, then spoilers ahead because this is a review of the final book.

This book, like the previous book, is told from 2 point-of views: Evie and Gavin. I don’t recall the first book having Gavin’s POV. Evie knows that she used to be an Enforcer and she met her birthmother. She meets a woman named Nadia and discovers the Underground, the people living in a place called the Caverns in an underdeveloped hidden section of Elysium. They are planning a rebellion against mother. Also Gavin has to go to the surface because the other have nanites in them that could wipe their memories it the leave.

Gavin goes to his mother, who thought he was dead. Apparently his little brother angered the mayor of their village and now they’re not allowed to trade or be full citizens. Gavin gets pissed about this and the mayor tries to bribe Gavin for information on his son Asher and Evie’s whereabouts. Meanwhile Evie and the Underground come up with a plan that involves wearing mask with her face on them and gaining the trust of the citizens and help to take down mother.

I was a bit disappointed with this finale. I loved the first two books, but this one felt lacking and also the ending left a lot of questions, as crazy as it was. There was not as much romance or action or adventure. Having to wait and extra year to read this book that was not worth the wait. I still like the character and love the setting, but this felt like it was trying to imitate other dystopian finales at least until the very end. I just wish things went differently.

Cover Art Review: I like the cover. Evie is wearing an Enforcer cloak here. I’m not sure if the dress is what they wear too.

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The Last Star by Rick Yancey

Series: The 5th Wave (bk. 3)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: post-apocalyptic, aliens, survival,

Setting: Ohio, during late winter, early spring. Ohio Caverns. A little bit of Canada too.

POV/Tense: 1st person POV present and past tense, rotating by part between Ringer (Marika), Zombie (Ben) & Cassie (Cassiopeia), and 3rd person of Evan and Sam

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 338 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: Penguin: Putnam

Summary/ product description: “The enemy is Other. The enemy is us.

They’re down here, they’re up there, they’re nowhere. They want the Earth, they want us to have it. They came to wipe us out, they came to save us.

But beneath these riddles lies one truth: Cassie has been betrayed. So has Ringer. Zombie. Nugget. And all 7.5 billion people who used to live on our planet. Betrayed first by the Others, and now by ourselves.

In these last days, Earth’s remaining survivors will need to decide what’s more important: saving themselves…or saving what makes us human.”

My Review:  The Last Star is the highly anticipated finale of the 5^th Wave trilogy. It starts off with a prologue about why Cassie’s father named her Cassiopeia. Then there’s the 3^rd person perspective of a priest who’s a silencer, and goes to Ohio Caverns and kills the people living there. Then at page 21 we finally get to the story.  

Cassie’s pretty angry. Her, Zombie aka Ben, Evan Walker, Dumbo, Sam and Megan are all hiding out. Ringer and Teacup went ahead to some Caverns. Cassie’s mad because of a lot of things, but one thing is that her six-year-old brother Sam forgot his ABCs. Zombie and Dumbo go after Ringer. They run into trouble and stuff happens. There’s only 4 days till the spring equinox when the bombs will drop from the mothership to destroy all cities on earth.

This series seems to use well-known places as settings. At least well known if you ever been to Ohio. In 2004, when I was 11, on my family trip to Ohio, we visited Ohio Caverns. It was a cool cave. I’ve been to 5 other caves, and this one seemed pretty small. Maybe it was just the tour we went on. Anyway, I took pictures. It was beautiful. On that trip we also the air force base’s museum, the space museum in Dayton and also we stayed in Columbus.

Here's Ohio Caverns:

(the girl in the blue jacket is me)

Here's the air force museum:

This series has been pretty good, but some things have really irritated me about it. Maybe the way perspective change and the way chapter begin and end on the same page with very little space much like in the Unwind series. I this final book there are labels when the perspective change. Cassie, Zombie, Ringer, Sam, and Evan Walker. And the perspective changes every few chapter. No having to really a whole part, 100 pages straight, of just one character.

My favorite character’s POV to read is Cassie. She’s funny. Her humor reminds me so much of Maximum Ride. I still wish the whole book was in Cassie’s perspective, but I can see now how that wouldn’t have worked. Maybe if it was limited to Cassie and Zombie. What I don’t understand now if how Cassie’s POV could have been written in a journal the whole time because of the ending.

Let’s talk about that ending. *VAGUE SPOILER AHEAD*

If you read the ending to Allegiant by Veronica Roth, it’s that kind of ending. I hate martyr endings. Also, I feel like too much was left open, like there’s a possibility of a spin-off series. Probably won’t happen, just saying.

Also, in September 2014 I got to meet Rick Yancey. You can click here to see.

Cover Art Review: Not sure if that’s an air force base or water treatment plant on the cover. The cover is pretty good. You can see the owl behind the title this time. It’s a lot more noticeable than the previous covers.