This review is going to suffer from me having read multiple books since finishing this one. I do apologize. I powered through it mostly to have the conclusion and, hey, it was a pretty satisfying one, as “dystopian YA novels with powerful teenage female protagonists” go.
The book actually dives pretty deeply into what is clearly Ruby’s PTSD following the bombing of their previous base and the loss of one of her closest friends. Granted, the book then also sidesteps some of those symptoms to make them part of some greater plot, but the author at least tried. It was an unexpected track of character development for Ruby, and I appreciated it.
Overall things get tied up pretty neatly in a bow. There are a few plot points that could have been solved by talking to each other (and actually, one of the characters called that out. And then the plot point did get solved by them talking to each other!) The bow was nice, though. I liked the happy-ish endings. There also were some genuinely unexpected moments of real tragedy that I didn’t see coming (but that may have been because I was, again, powering through it).
The series isn’t necessarily what I would call a standout, but yeah, I’ll probably see the movie(s) when it comes out. Maybe not in theaters, but definitely by the time it’s streaming. It’ll be fun to watch how more of the casting plays out too. They’re an engaging, if mostly light, read.
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