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mjovyy1 's review for:
In the Afterlight
by Alexandra Bracken
"...Dreamers always wake up and leave their monsters behind."
If each memory that drifted up were a star, I was standing at the centre of a galaxy.
Alexandra Bracken, you are magnificent. This was such an amazing, dystopian novel, which was an amazing finale of The Darkest Minds series. The Afterlight was a troublesome 5/5.
Black is the colour that is no colour at all.
This series was placed very high on my favourites list after the first two novels, and I was over-the-top excited when I got my hands on the finale book. I wanted to see where the epic combustion of action chapters were going to reveal themselves ... throughout the whole story line, that is. The plot here was a little slow at the start. It was a little dragging and there wasn't a lot of action on the first half of the book.
But although the slow plot line greatly differentiated this book from it's previous two, we saw a lot more conflict between the inner circle of characters. So although, we didn't get a series of kickass scenes, we got a lot of drama between friends, enemies and newbies.
We saw a lot of disagreements between characters, and the drama between them was unbelievable. It was almost laughable. I actually think that that drama made up for the lack of going on a journey in this book, which was a really big key factor in the previous two.
It is a road. A forgotten night sky broken up by faded stars.
So, after our protagonists escape from the bombarded Los Angeles, they seek a safe house which would allow them to settle and come up with a plan to break out the rest of the United State's children from other rehabilitation camps. On their way, they find some familiar faces, which they take under the wing again, and Cole, who is the head of the operation, leads them to refuge.
There, they argue about their plans, their resources and their objectives. The novel wasn't entirely structured at this moment, and everything was in its' crawling stage. While they are in the safe house, they negotiate ways to forward their plans to break children out, to find the cause of IAAN and to get back the agents and important individuals that they lost. Slowly, they accomplish ... most of these things.
It is the barrel of a new gun, levelled at your heart.
Our beloved characters are argumentative of where they should turn their weapons to the numerous threats around them, but what they don't realise, is that they are blinded by the fact that the most unexpected twist in the tale is literally located around the corner ... in that isolated cell.
The colour of Chub's hair, Liam's bruises, Zu's eye.
Now this is my favourite part, because I really really want to talk about these characters. After finishing this book, I was so close to throwing it at the wall, because I will forever, FOREVER, miss Ruby, Chubs, Liam, Zu and Vida. They were so unique, so beautiful and characterised brilliantly.
Character development was a key factor in this book. Ruby, our main character, was greatly affected by this. Ruby still undervalues her ability, and she is still reluctant to do things against her will... whether she is aware of what she is doing or not... *hint, hint.* In this book, she is tougher and fiercer than ever. She is more in charge here, but occasionally we get to see the part of her that is still terrified of what will happen if she loses control. Ruby once admits to Cole that she can't help anyone if she isn't in control. And after reading that paragraph, my respect for Ruby skyrocketed. She puts herself in so much risk, so much danger, but she will happily stand in front of a shower of bullets to protect everyone who stands behind her. She is an amazing inspiration and I love her.
However, she is not one that plays an individual game. She is not as confident as she can be if she is alone. It's clear that she cannot assemble enough 'soldiers' at an operational level, which is where the importance of the supporting characters come into play.
Cole was like a brother figure to Ruby. Almost like the sibling she never had. And although his relationship with Liam can get a little hostile, Cole is an important and caring big brother who doesn't want his friends and relatives to end up 6 feet under. He literally beats himself up to keep everyone glued together. I will forever admire the leader that Cole was fabricated to be. His story ended too early, but he is certainly someone who I will take my hat off every time someone he is mentioned.
The argumentative behaviour present in this book also disrupted a lot of friendships along the way. The relationship between Ruby and Liam had a lot of faults due to the disagreements that they had. BUT LOVE IS LOVE AND YOU CAN'T FIGHT IT! I was so happy when they resolved their conflict, that I burst into tears. And also, I was really happy when Chubs and Vida finally reacted to their chemistry.
I thought that this specifically was significant for their relationship:
"You know, Grannie...you have actually not sucked in this crisis." Vida said.
"I can't see your face so I can't tell how sincere that was..." Chubs replied.
Believe me. This is a big improvement.
"Screw Team Reality - I'm leaving to join Team Sanity."
Black is a promise of tomorrow, bled dry from lies and hate. Betrayal.
One character, who played an interesting and exceptional villain, was Clancy Gray. Gray's character was spontaneously developed, although he ever left his 'evil' ways, he improved in a lot, and his strong displeasing relationship with the other characters, especially Ruby, started to get very controlling and unbalanced, but I think that this character was one of Bracken's best. He was cunning, mischievous, and his plans were so unexpected that when he pulled his final evil dead, I was so shocked that I threw the book across the room.
Clancy Gray was an unforgettable villain. I loved him.
But the thing that I liked most about him was that ... he didn't necessary believe he was doing anything wrong. The key factor in some villains is psychological. There are some villains out there that want nothing more than to inflict pain and suffering to everyone they come across. They want revenge. And Clancy did want revenge in some way, but he was certain that everything he did was for the greater good. In a way, by doing all of the horrible things that he has done, he believed that he was saving people.
I don't think I'll be able to think negatively about him after that. It was kinda sad to realise.
Ruby's character, again, really stood out. Going from this:
"Ruby, what does the future look like?"
"I see it in colours," I said. "A deep blue, fading into gold and reds - like fire on a horizon. Afterlight. It's a sky that wants you to guess if the sun is about to rise or set."
To:
"I saw the future with sharp clarity and it wasn't a road, it wasn't a sky, it wasn't anything that beautiful. It was electricity singing through metal chainlink and bars. It was mud and rain and a thousand days bleeding into a stream of black.
I swear, if I were to get my hands on anyone of those foul Satan-spawns who harmed Ruby, I'm going to kill them, their children and their grandchildren. And Dean Winchester is going to help me.
It is the fire.
One of things that made this book a 5 out of 5 star book was the psychological conflicts the author introduced here. You saw the conflicts that could erupted from complicated decision making. The slow chapters at the beginning of the book were forgiven for their lack of action after I read the intense, dangerous, action packed final chapters.
It is the spark.
It was a combustion of intensity. Ruby was never alone, I was one step away behind her. Through the entire adventure. After her taking, the rest of the crew finally resolved their differences and went to help her. To help her succeed in the plan that was fabricated at the very start of the series. At the end, it just shows the intense loyalty these characters have for one another. And I think it's been a long time since I've read this in another book.
Black is the colour of memory.
I will forever miss these extraordinary kids. Alexandra Bracken left them off with a happy finale, taking us back to the place where the characters were happy. Together, in a car, with the open road ahead of them. Which just shows that they will forever be moving. Moving forward.
It is our colour. The only one they'll use to tell our story.
This book made me cry harder than I have ever had. And I will forever love it for that.
Some people came into this world and never once looked up to see the lives around them - they were so focused on what they wanted, what they needed. No one else mattered to them. They disconnected from sympathy and pity and guilt. Some people came into this world as monsters. I understand that now.
If each memory that drifted up were a star, I was standing at the centre of a galaxy.
Alexandra Bracken, you are magnificent. This was such an amazing, dystopian novel, which was an amazing finale of The Darkest Minds series. The Afterlight was a troublesome 5/5.
Black is the colour that is no colour at all.
This series was placed very high on my favourites list after the first two novels, and I was over-the-top excited when I got my hands on the finale book. I wanted to see where the epic combustion of action chapters were going to reveal themselves ... throughout the whole story line, that is. The plot here was a little slow at the start. It was a little dragging and there wasn't a lot of action on the first half of the book.
But although the slow plot line greatly differentiated this book from it's previous two, we saw a lot more conflict between the inner circle of characters. So although, we didn't get a series of kickass scenes, we got a lot of drama between friends, enemies and newbies.
We saw a lot of disagreements between characters, and the drama between them was unbelievable. It was almost laughable. I actually think that that drama made up for the lack of going on a journey in this book, which was a really big key factor in the previous two.
It is a road. A forgotten night sky broken up by faded stars.
So, after our protagonists escape from the bombarded Los Angeles, they seek a safe house which would allow them to settle and come up with a plan to break out the rest of the United State's children from other rehabilitation camps. On their way, they find some familiar faces, which they take under the wing again, and Cole, who is the head of the operation, leads them to refuge.
There, they argue about their plans, their resources and their objectives. The novel wasn't entirely structured at this moment, and everything was in its' crawling stage. While they are in the safe house, they negotiate ways to forward their plans to break children out, to find the cause of IAAN and to get back the agents and important individuals that they lost. Slowly, they accomplish ... most of these things.
It is the barrel of a new gun, levelled at your heart.
Our beloved characters are argumentative of where they should turn their weapons to the numerous threats around them, but what they don't realise, is that they are blinded by the fact that the most unexpected twist in the tale is literally located around the corner ... in that isolated cell.
The colour of Chub's hair, Liam's bruises, Zu's eye.
Now this is my favourite part, because I really really want to talk about these characters. After finishing this book, I was so close to throwing it at the wall, because I will forever, FOREVER, miss Ruby, Chubs, Liam, Zu and Vida. They were so unique, so beautiful and characterised brilliantly.
Character development was a key factor in this book. Ruby, our main character, was greatly affected by this. Ruby still undervalues her ability, and she is still reluctant to do things against her will... whether she is aware of what she is doing or not... *hint, hint.* In this book, she is tougher and fiercer than ever. She is more in charge here, but occasionally we get to see the part of her that is still terrified of what will happen if she loses control. Ruby once admits to Cole that she can't help anyone if she isn't in control. And after reading that paragraph, my respect for Ruby skyrocketed. She puts herself in so much risk, so much danger, but she will happily stand in front of a shower of bullets to protect everyone who stands behind her. She is an amazing inspiration and I love her.
However, she is not one that plays an individual game. She is not as confident as she can be if she is alone. It's clear that she cannot assemble enough 'soldiers' at an operational level, which is where the importance of the supporting characters come into play.
Cole was like a brother figure to Ruby. Almost like the sibling she never had. And although his relationship with Liam can get a little hostile, Cole is an important and caring big brother who doesn't want his friends and relatives to end up 6 feet under. He literally beats himself up to keep everyone glued together. I will forever admire the leader that Cole was fabricated to be. His story ended too early, but he is certainly someone who I will take my hat off every time someone he is mentioned.
The argumentative behaviour present in this book also disrupted a lot of friendships along the way. The relationship between Ruby and Liam had a lot of faults due to the disagreements that they had. BUT LOVE IS LOVE AND YOU CAN'T FIGHT IT! I was so happy when they resolved their conflict, that I burst into tears. And also, I was really happy when Chubs and Vida finally reacted to their chemistry.
I thought that this specifically was significant for their relationship:
"You know, Grannie...you have actually not sucked in this crisis." Vida said.
"I can't see your face so I can't tell how sincere that was..." Chubs replied.
Believe me. This is a big improvement.
"Screw Team Reality - I'm leaving to join Team Sanity."
Black is a promise of tomorrow, bled dry from lies and hate. Betrayal.
One character, who played an interesting and exceptional villain, was Clancy Gray. Gray's character was spontaneously developed, although he ever left his 'evil' ways, he improved in a lot, and his strong displeasing relationship with the other characters, especially Ruby, started to get very controlling and unbalanced, but I think that this character was one of Bracken's best. He was cunning, mischievous, and his plans were so unexpected that when he pulled his final evil dead, I was so shocked that I threw the book across the room.
Clancy Gray was an unforgettable villain. I loved him.
But the thing that I liked most about him was that ... he didn't necessary believe he was doing anything wrong. The key factor in some villains is psychological. There are some villains out there that want nothing more than to inflict pain and suffering to everyone they come across. They want revenge. And Clancy did want revenge in some way, but he was certain that everything he did was for the greater good. In a way, by doing all of the horrible things that he has done, he believed that he was saving people.
I don't think I'll be able to think negatively about him after that. It was kinda sad to realise.
Ruby's character, again, really stood out. Going from this:
"Ruby, what does the future look like?"
"I see it in colours," I said. "A deep blue, fading into gold and reds - like fire on a horizon. Afterlight. It's a sky that wants you to guess if the sun is about to rise or set."
To:
"I saw the future with sharp clarity and it wasn't a road, it wasn't a sky, it wasn't anything that beautiful. It was electricity singing through metal chainlink and bars. It was mud and rain and a thousand days bleeding into a stream of black.
I swear, if I were to get my hands on anyone of those foul Satan-spawns who harmed Ruby, I'm going to kill them, their children and their grandchildren. And Dean Winchester is going to help me.
It is the fire.
One of things that made this book a 5 out of 5 star book was the psychological conflicts the author introduced here. You saw the conflicts that could erupted from complicated decision making. The slow chapters at the beginning of the book were forgiven for their lack of action after I read the intense, dangerous, action packed final chapters.
It is the spark.
It was a combustion of intensity. Ruby was never alone, I was one step away behind her. Through the entire adventure. After her taking, the rest of the crew finally resolved their differences and went to help her. To help her succeed in the plan that was fabricated at the very start of the series. At the end, it just shows the intense loyalty these characters have for one another. And I think it's been a long time since I've read this in another book.
Black is the colour of memory.
I will forever miss these extraordinary kids. Alexandra Bracken left them off with a happy finale, taking us back to the place where the characters were happy. Together, in a car, with the open road ahead of them. Which just shows that they will forever be moving. Moving forward.
It is our colour. The only one they'll use to tell our story.
This book made me cry harder than I have ever had. And I will forever love it for that.
Some people came into this world and never once looked up to see the lives around them - they were so focused on what they wanted, what they needed. No one else mattered to them. They disconnected from sympathy and pity and guilt. Some people came into this world as monsters. I understand that now.