Author: Emmy Laybourne
# of Pages: 305 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Dystopian
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Synopsis: It's over. Dean, Alex, and the other survivors of the Monument 14 have escaped the disaster zone and made it to the safety of a Canadian refugee camp. Some of the kids have been reunited with their families, and everyone is making tentative plans for the future. And then, Niko learns that his lost love, Josie, has survived! Or is it? For Josie, separated from the group and presumed dead, life has gone from bad to worse. Trapped in a terrible prison camp with other exposed O’s and traumatized by her experiences, she has given up all hope of rescue. Meanwhile, scared by the government’s unusual interest in her pregnancy, Astrid—along with her two protectors, Dean and Jake—joins Niko on his desperate quest to be reunited with Josie.
Review: I read the first two books of the Monument 14 trilogy almost three years ago. In this time, not only have I forgotten most of the characters and the whole plot, but also my love, and the main stream audience's love, for dystopian science fiction has drastically dwindled. However, since I owned a copy of this book for some reason or another three years ago (I didn't like the preceding two book very much - what made me think this one would be any better?), I decided to read it regardless if I'd be able to follow the story or not.
What I do applaud Laybourne for is how quickly she was able to summarize the plot of Monument 14 and Sky on Fire. At the very beginning of the book, Laybourne includes Alex's letter to the editors of a newspaper which succinctly retells the story of how the survivors of the Monument 14 made it to the Canadian camp and conveniently lists all of the main and supporting characters' names and ages. While I would otherwise find this method irritatingly sloppy, I appreciated the refresher and how Laybourne craftily incorporated the letter into the plot.
More characters are introduced than were necessary, especially the younger children. Characters such as Chloe, Caroline, and Henry, the children who were part of the trilogy since book one could have easily been condensed into one character. The same could be said of Heather, Aiden, and Freddy; one child would have been sufficient in revealing Josie's cold yet protective nature. Developing so many different characters was overkill.
While every teenager mentally develops at their own pace, I expected more maturity from the older characters, especially Dean and Jake. Their constant bickering may have meant to come off as childish, but I was never sympathetic with either of them, only annoyed. I would rather have felt Dean's frustrations with having to deal with the loser baby father hanging around his girlfriend, but Laybourne made his narrative sound immature and even a little creepy (he wanted to play with Astrid's bellybutton? Seriously?).
Laybourne is constantly using labels to describe side characters: a Latino man, a Chinese nurse, a man with a "Jersey-gangster" accent. I've never been so aware of the race/ethnicity/origin of the characters in a book until now. Laybourne uses these stereotypes to shortcut her way through describing insignificant characters even though most of the time these labels are not even relevant to the character's development nor the story. It would be better if Laybourne left these details up for interpretation.
Most reader who have made it to the third book already like Laybourne's writing style. To these people, I would recommend this book to because from what I can tell, this story is just as enjoyable as the others. To those who are still on the fence, if you are interested in a low-level YA read that is short and shallow, this is your book.
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