Final review guys! So, I have been bashing on this book quite a bit lately. The last few chapters (to me, at least) have seemed to have failed on pretty much every level. They managed to get 2 likable characters, and then they went and gave one of them only half a chapter, and killed the other one! Yeah, that's right, the big sad moment of this book is the killing of Tam; oh, you don't remember Tam? Yeah, he's the uncle that got a whole 25 lines in the book. In a movie, this could be considered enough to make a well-established character, but in a book your expecting so much more from a character, and it's not even like most of his lines are good lines; he just acts like a poor man's Sirius Black.
So, Will and Cal eventually decide to help Chester and go back through the sewers into the abandoned city. However, the city is now crawling with Styx, which starts a fight between the 2 boys, there Doberman/Cat creature, and the Styx. This ends up with Tam appearing literally out of nowhere and having a fight with Crawfly. Tam kills Crawfly, and as they run to escape Rebecca throws a dagger, hitting Tam and killing him (Dobby, anyone?). After this, Will discovers (via random convenience) that Chester just left the police station and is heading for the deeps (a even lower area of the colony, pretty much a giant prison), and Will has a way to get onto the train. He does, meets Chester, and the book ends.
So, I am very mixed with this book. It has some elements that are very good, like the basic premise of the novel. However, the execution of this premise just feels sloppy. The pacing changes more than Donald Trump's opinions (that totally won't date this post quickly), and many of the characters with a lot of potential to be likable get barely a second glance or get killed in the first installment, and they failed to make the motivations for some characters next to non-existent. There are many more installments in this series, and looking at the reviews, it seems that the books decline in quality from here. So would I recommend this book? If you find it in your library maybe pick it up, but under no circumstance should you purchase it over much better YA fiction that is out there.
Final Rating: I give this book a 4/10, due to the lackluster elements mentioned before. It doesn't live up to much better fictional stories in the same area, and the fact that there is so much more amazing stories out there makes it impossible for me to recommend this.
'Till Next Time Adventurers!
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