Book Synopsis:
In the series debut The Testing, sixteen-year-old Cia Vale was chosen by the United Commonwealth government as one of the best and brightest graduates of all the colonies . . . a promising leader in the effort to revitalize postwar civilization. In Independent Study, Cia is a freshman at the University in Tosu City with her hometown sweetheart, Tomas—and though the government has tried to erase her memory of the brutal horrors of The Testing, Cia remembers. Her attempts to expose the ugly truth behind the government’s murderous programs put her—and her loved ones—in a world of danger. But the future of the Commonwealth depends on her.
My Review:
3.5/5 stars. After a great first book, this sequel really fell short. It wasn't nearly as engaging and exciting, the romance was even more bland than it was in the first book, and the plot never seemed to go anywhere. A good sequel still tells its own complete story, but this book felt like the entire plot was a set-up for the third book. I will still read the last in the trilogy, though, to see how it concludes and if it gets better again.
The pacing of this book was a lot different compared to the first one. The first one was fast paced and action-packed almost the whole time, but this one actually had very little action. There wasn't as much excitement, and there were rarely any cliff-hanger moments that made me want to keep reading. I don't mind slower paced stories, as long as there is still character development happening, but this book had no character development, either.
There was one plot point that interested me the most, but that was only set up in this book to be fulfilled in the third one, which goes back to what I said about it feeling like a filler book. Every major plot element was like that. By chapter 15, with only five chapters left, I was wondering how anything could get resolved when nothing had even really started.
Just like the first one, the romance in this book felt very unnecessary. It was even more unnecessary in this one. I didn't feel anything for their relationship, they had no chemistry, and they also weren't even together a lot of the book.
Content:
Language: h*ll
Sexual Content: Nothing more than kissing, and it's never described in detail
Violence/Gore: A lot less than the first book. There is some death, stabbing, and mentions of blood
Drugs/Alcohol: None
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