A Reading Vocation

A librarian friend hypothesized that, since this book is so much shorter than The 5th Wave, maybe this was one of those stories that only became a trilogy due to pressure from the publisher. And it certainly does feel like this is simply a "stretching out" of the previous story for at least the first half of the book, during which we get lots of character drama and internal dialog but very little in the way of plot development. Frankly, it feels like it is floundering about, trying first one perspective, then another, as it attempts to figure out what's going to happen next.

The second half of the book picks up and seems to have more direction, and the ending is intriguing enough to nudge what was a solidly three-star book up nearer to four. An unexpected development answers a lot of niggling questions and uncovers a new direction for the series, which I guess means I'll have to read the next one. Damn these cliffhanger endings!