Review: In The Afterlight

In The Afterlight by Alexandra Bracken
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been almost three years since this trilogy ended, three years since I read this book...and while I really loved it the first time, looking back, I see that In The Afterlight still suffers from the big classic Alexandra Bracken flaw of excessive overlength. Like any of the previous entries in The Darkest Minds trilogy, I could really see a lot of times where, let's face it, Bracken could've striven to cut the whole thing down and remove a lot of redundancies. I mean, if you like your dystopians with a lot of road-movie elements, and precious little politicking, maybe this one's totally for you...but I really do think this whole trilogy could've done with more action, less travel, and more characters who were either A) easy to care about, B) easy to visualize as people (even Ruby, it's hard to really picture her sometimes, even knowing Amandla Stenberg's playing her in the movie), or C) both of the above.

But don't take my heavy criticism as a sign that this book sucks. Really, Bracken has a knack for rewarding readers who battle through the long slog with just the right amount of world-building in a cascade - especially here, in this final book of the series, where the biggest questions of all are answered.

Maybe reducing this whole trilogy to a duology or a standalone would've helped...but then again, I should know better. I'm still in the process of condensing a trilogy to a standalone, which is extremely difficult because as slow-moving as the plot gets sometimes (maybe Bracken possessed me while writing my original Dark Ice trilogy?), there are just too many darlings to kill sometimes. Maybe Bracken should've killed a few more darlings and then this series would be five-star worthy for me.

But oh well.

To The Darkest Minds Never Fade In The Afterlight (hee hee, I couldn't resist), I once again say vas ir...anoshe.

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