Medium: audiobook

[THIS IS MY INITIAL REVIEW, full review to be posted on my blog]
**note: this includes raw notes while I was reading said book because I need to release my thoughts on the books I have read but still not having enough time to make reviews for ARCs and the books I read out of my own interest :)) be gentle with me

"You will love people, and they’ll be taken away no matter how hard you fight to keep them."

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*All of my reviews are as spoiler-free as possible unless states otherwise*

plot:
I'm sorry but the first part was too much like the typical YA dystopian, which was not what I was looking for after reading the first book. It had a very slow start, somehow like the first book but without the adventurous feel to it. Which I have to admit, might be the reason that this book got a whole star removed from my rating. It lacked the deepness and intensity I was expecting to dive back into. Though, it did pick up in the middle, suddenly shifting to a faster pace, like the first book.

“i didn’t know where i was going or how i was going to get there, i had just run”
However, what made me so nostalgic is the references to book one, which greatly influenced my emotions for this book. I like the process that kids got their powers, it was indeed different and did not happen based on some magical entity. It was not, what I like to call the "just because" magical system. The Psy kids had their own heirarchy within them and is always a detail of the plot that I really liked reading about. Include it to the fact that this plot focuses a lot on displaying how children can take care of themselves in a world where adults are trying to control them.

some other things I need to say but lack the energy to substantiate as of right now (includes some raw book notes):
- i was frustrated for about half of the book
- dystopian governments being very terrible
- “when things go bad, you gotta fix them”
- MY MAIN PROBLEM was how tired i got of the conflict
- i liked the morals and all but i was tired of the plotline
- I LIKE the idea of taking care of your own. it kept acknowledging the fact that only America was affected by the virus
- a lot things were expected but they made my heart ache :')
- i thought i had everything figured out
- some parts didn’t make sense and greatly underwhelmed me

characters:
“no one can every really know another person unless you really pay attention”


It was hard to get attached to the characters again at first that i had to really focus and listen to it since it was not putting me in the mood to read but i was curious to know what would happen

some raw book notes:
- JUDE MY GOODNESS HAS A PURE SOUL: “I don’t want to just know a person’s face, I want to know their shadow”
- JUDE: “people are more than what a piece of paper or file says about them”
- this boy has has more wisdom in his little finger than most of the characters do
- i miss the others characters (Zu, Chubs, Liam) and it felt like they were being replaced by characters with parallel personalities
- Ruby’s empathy felt so forced at the beginning
- the humor did not get me as much as the first book did
- i miss the adventurous feel that the first book gave me because it started to feel like the basic dystopian novel
- Ruby: “ghosts don’t haunt people, their memories do”
- jude is so innocent
- about chubs: “I’m not sure he saw a point in pretending to be anything he wasn’t”
- i dont know if its because of the audiobook but ruby was really annoying me
- im sick of the girl on girl hate (I NEED FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE)
- although i love the chracterization, they were all what i expected them to eb
- my favorite character was every other character except for the main character
- i HATE how liam was practically out of the story (not jsut becuase he’s a character that i love) but because he was the rock of the group and he balanced out the dynamic of their group. everything felt unbalanced while he was missing. unless that was the point of that ????
- LIAM was so broken and portrayed weak AND I HATED IT
- when the real liam was finally brought back from the ghost of a shell liam i realized how much the Ruby-Liam dynamic played into my love for this series
* OKAY we need to talk about that ‘fight’ scene between Liam and Ruby. Can you just imagine how Liam felt? he felt emotions too strong for this stranger he jsut met
* when ruby and liam were separated, i hated it, and when they were re united an liam started to remember fragments, i jsut couldn’t take it anymore
* vida and ruby’s relationship FINALLY got to the friendship point
* cliche dystopian: they used the strengths of their enemies against them
* my heart is destroyed

overall:

some more raw book notes!! :
- i felt a lot of emotion but it did not strike me as much as the first book did, i dont know if that was the book itself or the audiobook
- i still enjoyed this a lot, but there are just too many aspects that i cannot ignore
- what i got: it’s about accepting what you were given. it’s not about what you are, it’s about what you do with what you are given
- it took me too long to finish this, i had to read it in audiobook, which i dont normally like because my interpretation of the books is different than that of the one reading it, which in turn affects my impression of the book at the end
- without the Ruby-Liam dynamic, the book just felt so incomplete to me and I couldn’t bring myself to love it
- this is gettin 4 stars because of the last 25% and how much I genuinely enjoyed it
- i am defnitely going to continue on to the next book out of curiosity

"Forgive yourself, but don’t forget."

~ Althea (themoonwholistens) ☾