A review by monicakessler
Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman

4.0

Well, the first half of this was a slog. The reason for this was that the first half of the book was much less plot-driven and much more introspective than the first book. We're just stuck going round Sephy and Jude's heads for so long and to be honest, those places are not the nicest places to be. They're both in bad places and making stupid decisions, and neither are my favourite character. For Sephy, it's forgivable that she's being Dumb of Ass since she's clearly suffering from post partum depression or just plain old depression anyway, but in Jude's case it's really physically painful to see him offered so many opportunities for redemption which he gets so close to and then ultimately rejects. Though at least I could see his decision making process and aftermaths so he is a well-written character in that regard.

It picks up in the second half after the “inciting event” which is really awful, so still nothing to look forward to in this book really! Overall I think it suffers from “2nd book syndrome”. The strongest parts of this story are still the “worldbuilding” elements; linked to that, my favourite bits to read were the “newspaper clippings” at the start of each section. Those were very well done, and insightful.

AFAIK, Checkmate is better so I'm still looking forward to that.

Oh, and the ending... for anyone who was reading these books as they came out, I cannot imagine a more dramatic and nerve-wrecking cliffhanger...

3.5*