A review by lissajean7
Sanctuary by Caryn Lix

3.0

I'm a sucker for super powers, so I knew I was going to like this one. And for the most part, I did. Criminalizing super powers is a dystopia I could, unfortunately, believe all too well, and it was a powerful uncovering of those secrets. I loved the characters, and mourned the ones that died, but I was a little confused about the "rest" of the prisoners who basically huddled over elsewhere and let the main characters mix and mingle undisturbed. They never asked to have their inhibitor chip removed, and never gave a reason for not doing so. We were given one name to represent all the rest of them, and she was annoying. Just odd. Then, the big bad aliens came. They were sufficiently scary. The was a sequence where I may have yelled, "No, you left the stunner with the other group, idiots!", but mostly things checked out. It was the end that I really struggled with. Like, yelling at the book struggles. There is going to be a bit of a spoiler ahead, just FYI. If you want to stop reading now, just know I'll probably read the next one because I have SO MANY QUESTIONS, but I'm not sure I'm going to like it. Anyway, why did ALL of the other kids on the other levels have to just die? Didn't that healing dude do anything? He was apparently exhausted from doing something, but not a single one was salvageable??? He could've saves a few before his power ran out or whatever. It just made him seem way less powerful than the girl who could heal herself, and just unnecessary. If you're going to have a group of super powered people who just hang around and watch anyway, why not add a few more to give plausibility? Also, the interpersonal dynamic between Kenzie and Cage felt forced at the end. I'd like their relationship up to then, not really looking forward to where it's going to have to go from here. Anyway, I liked it. Didn't love it. Will look for the next one at the library.