I had preordered this book, but there was a delay, so I purchased the audio book and started there. When the book was delivered, I switched to it and admittedly got a bit stuck. I didn’t recall the details of book 1, Fledgling, and was struggling with the six or seven alternating points of view, alhumdulillah, a massive road trip had me returning to the audio book (which has different voices for each pov), and the rest as they say, was history.  I was sucked in, caught up, and truly invested in the heist, the characters, the fate of the world, and how it would all come together, or not, in the 514 pages of this concluding book of the YA duology.  The best part for me was the coded Islam sprinkled in, like squeal worthy inclusions of doing right by the One, multiple Ahraar principals such as how to treat prisoners, saving a person is like saving humanity, and the “fictional” political dynamics mirroring those here in our reality are truly chef’s kiss. The book juggles a lot of characters, plots, science-y details and while I won’t win an argument with seasoned sci fi dystopian readers, from my perspective, I was satisfied that character arcs, relationships, reveals, and logic were all accounted for by the last page, and my heart felt content with the outcome, those that survived, those that were lost, and the fate of the Aerd moving forward.

I don’t normally write up reviews for second books in series, add in that I would not want to spoil the fates of Raisa, Nayf, Musaid, Devon, Eyas, Khalda, Lein, Kizuwanda, Salwe, Hasuf, Jansu, Dr A, One-One-Eight, and Aeon, and this is all you are going to get out of me.  For those still considering if they should read the book: if you cannot recall book one, I think by the midpoint of this it will come back, and if you are struggling with keeping everyone straight while reading, I would highly recommend the audio version.  There is some romance, and death and destruction, nothing high school and up will find jarring, and while I hope everyone will read the series, I particularly hope Muslims will support the book, the author, and the political and societal commentary threaded through action story at hand.