Rating: 4/5 stars
Joy, Jax, Smudge, and the others must work to find the three keys that will open up "The Wall" out of Bygonne. They continue to face tragedy and loss at every turn, and secrets are being revealed all the time. Can they find the keys and escape the hellish nightmare that has been their lives?
There is so much that goes on in this book that I feel like it could have easily been split up into multiple books. Unlike the first two, which are solely from Joy's point of view, we get to see Jax's and Smudge's POVs in this book. This ended up working well since the group is split up for a lot of the book. There is a LOT of traveling back and forth to and from the Refuge. They return to some familiar places and must also go to new, terrifying places. Much is revealed about the technology and history of Alzanai and Bygonne in general. The group meets many new allies, including a man named Seraphim, who knew Joy's father.
This book provides a strong ending to the series, and I do feel like most of the questions were answered and the ends were tied up. Without spoiling too much, the ending was simply beautiful. The kids experienced an unreal amount of tragedy, but the ending was worth it. Jax and Joy's story in particular was wonderful -- they matured so much throughout the series. I'm normally not a huge fan of multiple POV, but I loved seeing his perspective in all of this.
This book series really still stands out as one of the most unique YA dystopian series I have read. It avoided the major "chosen one" stereotype (even though Joy was a leader-type, it didn't all depend on her). There was a love triangle, but I never mind that honestly. It wasn't riddled with zombies... Just a great story about a group of people who went through hell and back.
There are just a bit too many coincidental factors. Granted, the children, in the first book, were very isolated and knew almost nothing about their world, but this last book was sort of an explosion of technology appearing suddenly to save them, puzzles being solved by chance, and other things happening at JUST the right time to be convenient for the plot. In particular, the ability to talk in each other's minds via the 5R11s -- it was a really cool thing to use when Joy was in Alzenai with Zee (although even then I truly thought it was awfully convenient.) In this book, it seemed like they were literally handing out the 5R11s like candy. Then this mind speak/control was somehow extended so they could use the reapers as well. It just seemed like a bit much. Things tied together a little TOO nicely if that makes sense. Another thing that kind of bothered me was the dialogue. It seemed a little stale/artificial. It was a constant back and forth of explanations and sort of mundane chatter about plans they were executing. I feel like a lot of that superfluous stuff could have been eliminated or summarized and it would have made the book shorter. They also kept blowing sunshine up Joy's nose about how she was SO amazing and was going to save them all. They did that with a few of the characters actually. That got a bit old. It was also a syrupy at times. I honestly love Jax and Joy's relationship and was ridiculously happy when she finally chose to be with him. <3 I was less of a fan of Smudge in general, but I thought her and Johnny's relationship was sweet. But some of their interactions seemed too saccharine.
I was also confused by some of the technology in the book. Even with them talking about it over and over it was still kind of hard to wrap my mind around. There was a ton of new information in this book that was a little hard to absorb.
One of the parts of the book I really enjoyed was the Old World transfer program with Vila and Jax, partly because it helped explain a little more about why the world was the way it was. It was also just kind of a fun change of pace.
I know I will be suffering from a bit of a book hangover for a few days :-) Good books/series will do that to you! I am super excited about the prequel that is coming out in 2020. I'll be one of the first in line to preorder for sure!
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