Back to the book. In the Afterlight was great. I liked it a whole lot better than a lot of dystopian endings. But still, this book was a little disappointing, I'll admit. Maybe it was because we were confined in the same space for most of it, overall though, I highly enjoyed this book. It didn't live up to my highest expectations but it was certainly well written and intriguing. I'm giving this book a 10/10 stars. Why? Because, like I said, it's well written, the plot was well thought out the characterization was amazing and chemistry was realistic. I think that Ruby is a great, strong female protagonist and I love reading from her point of view. Liam was a little aggravating in this book, but I still love him all the same and Cole. Ah, Cole. If you guys didn't know, Cole is my favorite character in this series, followed closely by Ruby, Liam, Chubs, Zu and Vida. So pretty much I love all of Alexandra's characters. They're so well written and well thought out. I hear Alexandra is writing another series and seriously, I'm so excited to read it. The only character I really HATED. Was CLANCY FREAKING GRAY. I just wanna kick that asshat in the family jewels. Even more now. I loved that we got to see more of Cole in this book. I know a lot of people were like "EH! Cole is so annoying! Liam!" I like Liam guys, don't get me wrong, but don't diss Cole for it. It's not his fault about what's going on between Ruby and Liam. Cole really gets Ruby and that made me love him even more in this book. It's obvious that Cole cares a lot about Liam by the way he acts when he thinks Liam gets hurt or is in danger. He just doesn't know how to show it, and I get that, Cole, I really do. So yeah, if you insult Cole I'll get pissed off because I'm always going to be on his side of things. Where Liam's that sweet boy next door, Cole's more of the bad boy and as you all know, I do love my bad boys. I won't lie, I'm Cole biased in these books. So if you don't like that, well that's fine (kinda you're just making me sad) but I do and nothing is going to change that. Oh, and Alexandra, if I'm honored enough to have you reading my review (probably not, but if you are, I LOVE YOU!) I know you said you didn't want to write a novella about Cole, but I would love to read more about him and I feel like there's a lot you could cover there.
If I were to be able to choose a color I think I'd want to be a blue. Being able to control minds or set things on fire would be awesome but the price that comes with that would be too hard for me to bear, I do so believe. I think I'll just stick to having telekinesis.
If you haven't read this book series at all yet, where have you been? This is one of my all time favorite series so go pick up the first book right now even though I may have slightly spoiled you. The first book is called The Darkest Minds and is written by the ever amazing Alexandra Bracken.
SPOILERS TO IN THE AFTERLIGHT BELOW
Okay so I read the first three chapters of this book before it actually came out. And OMG Cole! When he and Ruby are having that talk about being monsters, my heart just went out to them. I'm glad that Ruby was able to find a sane person who could understand her feelings and see where she's coming from. Liam, Chubs and Vida just couldn't understand her on the same level as Cole. And I loved the growing friendship between the older Stewart and Ruby in this book.
Seriously, when they found Zu I was just like... what? It was definitely not what I was expecting, I thought it'd be a little more complicated than that, but all in all it was great having Zu back, and when she spoke. awdskbgwukb
Before I forget, let's cover the small tidbit of Sam, shall we? I feel like we should've seen more of Sam in this book. Like if you're going to write a novella about her and get us interested in her, at least give us more of her and Lucas in the last book. We hardly saw her at all and we only saw Lucas once, I think that Alex could've used Sam and Lucas a little bit more in this book.
"They don't burn do they? Not like us." COLE! There were so many inspiring lines in this book. And if you've been following m blog for while now, you'd know that I do love my inspiring quotes as well as my humorous ones.
"What they don't tell you about forgiveness is this you don't give it for the other person's sake, but for your own."
When Cole and Liam got into that physical fight, omg I thought that Cole was going to like, accidentally light his brother on fire or something. On the fire topic, I seriously thought that they'd be in a fight (like with the government) and Cole would have to use his power to save himself and that's how Liam would find out. Instead, Cole just tells Liam, I found that rather surprising to be honest.
Ruby and Liam's relationship was so frustrating in this book. Most of it I was just screaming in my head JUST TALK!!! They seriously needed to sit down and as Clary Fairchild/Morgenstern/Fray would say, DTR, define the relationship. And they only did that at like the end. Which was why it was so frustrating, but I think that was the point. It was so awkward when Ruby found Liam's cheat sheet. They just had this like, heated make out session and then she reads this thing that makes her think he doesn't trust her. I get where Ruby is coming from though, I feel insecure about everything, especially my relationships, in life, too, so even though I thought she was being over-dramatic, I could see her angle.
I think we all knew that it would't be Nico going into Thurmond. It was obviously going to be Ruby. It makes sense, it started there so it felt appropriate that the book should end there. I wasn't expecting that going into the book, so kudos to you, Alex.
Haha Gav! I loved that little side thing, how he was being a dick and then Cole scared the shit out of him. Cole Stewart, I love you.
Another thing that annoyed me about Liam, some of his decisions were so impulsive in this book. Like when he went out to get food, or when he 'left' to get Liv. I do think that Ruby should have stood up more for Liam when he and Cole were in fights, but I don't think Liam should've been so impulsive just because he wanted to be involved, although some of his ideas did help. Just as a little add in, I would've loved to see what happened when Cole told Liam he was a red and a few more of Cole and Liam's interactions in this book.
Okay. I was avoiding this for the whole review but I guess I have to cover it............. When Liam and Cole went 'scouting' I knew something was going to go wrong. BUT WHY?! WHY ALEXANDRA WHY?! *weeps* Why did you kill off Cole? D: As soon as Nico said a Stewart was dead, I knew it was Cole. 1. Because I was kind of preparing myself for it the entire book and 2. Because I knew Alex would never kill off Liam. But I want Cole back *pouts*. Seriously, I almost took a star off because Cole died. I kept telling myself that the video was fake and that Cole would pop back in any minute, but...No. Seriously you have no idea how excited I would get whenever I saw a capital C coming up. So here is why I hate Clancy even more than I did after Never Fade, which I didn't think was possible. HE KILLED COLE. That little bastard killed my baby. He set the whole freaking thing up. UGH! I wanted to see him dead SO badly in this book. When his mom was shooting him, I'll admit, I felt no empathy or remorse for him. I usually feel a little empathy for all the characters but for Clancy? No. When his mom was shooting him I got pure joy out of it. Okay maybe not pure, but joy and satisfaction. He killed Cole and so Clancy and I will never ever ever ever be on the same page, not like blog wise because we already are, but like page as in same ideas or side. UGh. Someone please go mortally injure Clancy and give him a slow painful death.