Ok. I'll get right into it. I HATED this book. Most of it anyway.

I was very much looking forward to this book after reading Pandamonium and I was so DISAPPOINTED.

This book was extremely slow, and instead of picking up right where the other book left off it was set at this random time afterwards?? I don't even know.
More than half the book is just lots of talking and random bits of conflict thrown in. Lena's whole jealousy thing about Alex was just ???? She was leading Julian on the whole time and it seemed all of her character development from Pandamonium disappeared and we were left with prissy jealous Lena.

Also, this is super random but the whole travelling aspect of this novel - now I'm not from America and don't know too much about the countries geographical layout but I know where Portland and New York are - or where I THOUGHT Portland was. That's when I did some research and found out that there were TWO Portland's in America - one in Oregon and one in Maine. And the whole time I was thinking that the book was referring to Portland OREGON and I was like "how the heck are they travelling from the East Coast to the West Coast so quickly like it's nothing????".
Now I don't know if I'm just an idiot or it was said in previous books or because I'm not America but I felt this should've been a little clearer. That's just me. It didn't impact my reading experience, but an anecdote of my confusion.

I was impartial to the whole Lena and Hana chapter concept. If you've read my other review of Pandamonium, you'll know that I'm not a massive fan of alternate chapters like this, and once again, I was more interested in Lena's chapters than I was with Hana's. I honestly didn't really care them that much until the later chapters

With the whole Cassie thing and Fred being an actual a$$hole.

. Sue me.

And the ENDING. Now, don't give me sh!t about how "you don't like the ending because you don't understand that it's about how it's life and you don't know what happens!!1!1!" that's a load of crap as far as I'm concerned. Sure, that's life, but like, they were RIGHT in the MIDDLE of the climax of the book? Why would you end it there? Like what happened to that bomb in Fred Hargrove's house? Did it go off? Did he die? What about Pippa and Tack and Lena's mother? What happened to them after the uprising? And Julian? What happened to him after the uprising? How did Lena explain her feelings to him? And Lena and Alex??? Like there was zero closure.
The whole point of a narrative is to have a beginning, middle and an end. And this book didn't give us that. It seemed unfinished and made me wonder if I was somehow missing pages of the book. Like if you want to end it like that, then fine but I think even just an epilogue set a few months after everything would've sufficed.

So that's my review. In summary, it was slow and uninteresting and a really disappointing end to a trilogy that I enjoyed.

I was very excited to read this book after finishing Delirium several months ago. I wasn't able to get my hands on a copy until now. I really liked this book. There was some really good character development made by Lena which was really interesting to see. And of Julian as well - whom I love

And now that I've finished the series, deserves better.

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I wasn't really a fan of the whole 'now' and 'then' alternate chapters, just because I was more into one of them and was impartial to the other

I found 'now' chapters way more interesting with Lena and Julian's capture and escape of that whole underground place and away from the Scavengers,
it was just more entertaining.

I just find that doing alternate chapters where there is such a difference in story sets the pacing really off and I'd much rather go from one thing to the other with continuity instead of jumping back and forth between 'now' and 'then'.
Other than that I quite liked the book. That ENDING though!

ALEX.

Phew! It just made me really excited about the next book and really glad that I borrowed it from the library at the same time so I could just move onto it straight away

Which I would later come to regret as the final book was so DISAPPOINTING.

.

This was okay. Sophia and Elsie were annoying as fuck and the only characters I liked were Joshua and Gillian. I’m sick of that troupe where people who are smart completely lack social skills and are just down right assholes.

These books are such easy reads and they’re always enjoyable. Jack has been my favourite love interest so far in the Heart of the City series. The only thing that bothered me that was like barely any conflict in this book??? Like the whole Jack keeping that secret was resolved so quickly and same with the conflict regarding her Nan. It wasn’t dragged out which was fine I guess because the main conflict was probably present through with Kate not being able to do the things she wants and with her Nan constantly being rude to her but I guess it was kind of weird there was no crescendo of sorts.