Author: Ilsa J. Bick
Genre: Young Adult / Dystopian / Science Fiction
Publisher: Egmont USA
Publication Date: 10th September 2013
ISBN: 9781606841778
Stand alone or series: Ashes Trilogy #3
Pages: 688 pages
First Lines: Alex had fallen like this only once in her life. That happened when she was nine and took a wild leap from Blackrocks Cliff off Presque Isle into the deep sapphire-blue of Lake Superior.
Possible Spoilers if you haven't read Ashes and Shadows!
Synopsis:The Changed are on the move.
The Spared are out of time.
The End...is now.
When her parents died, Alex thought things couldn't get much worse--until the doctors found the monster in her head.
She headed into the wilderness as a good-bye, to leave everything behind. But then the end of the world happened, and Alex took the first step down a treacherous road of betrayal and terror and death.
Now, with no hope of rescue--on the brink of starvation in a winter that just won't quit--she discovers a new and horrifying truth.
The Change isn't over.
The Changed are still evolving.
And...they've had help.
With this final volume of The Ashes Trilogy, Ilsa J. Bick delivers a riveting, blockbuster finish, returning readers to a brutal, post-apocalyptic world where no one is safe and hope is in short supply.
A world where, from these ashes, the monsters may rise.
My Thoughts:
This is by far the longest book in the Trilogy and I'm grateful for it. It also took the longest to read but being the last book in the Trilogy I really wanted to savour the world and its characters before it was all over too soon.
I have to also point out that there is a list of Characters at the end of the book that will help freshen the memory of what's happened so far. I thought it be a good idea to tell you it all now so that if you are like me, and take a little bit to remember what happened in the last book. This is a big help.
The first thing I noticed with Monsters was that it wasn't as goretastic as the other two books. Don't get me wrong, there's violence but not to the extremes(or shock value) of the first two books. There's more backstory for the characters than I had noticed in the first two, and this is good because it fleshes (excuse the pun) the characters out more and I guess there was a little more empathizing with the less likable characters.
I both liked and hated that there were so many viewpoints. Alex, Ellie, Tom, Greg, Peter, Chris. You see my point. Right when I was getting into one viewpoint Ilsa flips over to another character. I know this is to be expected to keep you reading... and by god did I do some reading to get back to finding out about that particular character. But then I'd be pulled into another character .. the cycle goes on.
I couldn't help but wondering all throughout the book.. when are Ellie, Alex and Tom getting back together. And, I have to say that this time reading about Ellie, I didn't want to reach in a throttle her as much as I wanted to in the first book. She's grown up since we've last heard from her and thank god for that. It was actually nice to see a more mature POV from her.
Tom on the other hand seemed to be slowly falling apart at one point. His time away from Alex really plays on his mind and in doing so, starts to form cracks in his sanity.
Wolf was a curious character I'm not sure whether I really liked or whether I was turned off from such a descriptive telling of smell lol. He shows more so than ever the protectiveness towards Alex but it all came back to me as Why! Why has he changed. And that I guess is where my answer was. Evolving. While I wish some other characters did a little more evolving, my shock at which characters had changed had me thinking.. HOW is this going to end. Because right now.. she aint gonna be pretty!
While I wouldn't say this is the most ideal ending I wanted to happen, I think I'm pretty happy with how it did turn out. I'm not sure if bittersweet is the right word I'm thinking of, but it's quite close to it.
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