Author: Emmy Laybourne
Publisher: Hodder Children's
Publication Date: 1st May 2015
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9781444917901
Source: Purchased
Rating: 4/5
Purchase: Amazon
Dean, Alex, and the other survivors of the Monument 14 have escaped the disaster zone and made it to the safety of a Canadian refugee camp. Some of the kids have even been reunited with their families and are making tentative plans for the future. Then, Niko learns that his lost love, Josie, has survived ...
For Josie, separated from the group and presumed dead, life has gone from bad to worse. Trapped in a terrible prison camp with other exposed O blood types and traumatized by her experiences,she has given up all hope of rescue.
Meanwhile, scared by the government's unusual interest in her pregnancy, Astrid - along with her two protectors, Dean and Jake - flees the camp to join Niko on his desperate quest to be reunited with Josie.
In a stunningly fierce conclusion to the Monument 14 trilogy, author Emmy Laybourne ups the stakes even more for a group of kids who have already survived the unthinkable. Can they do so one last time?
Name any trilogy since The Hunger Games and tell me how many of them finished with a poor third novel. Most of them? I went into Savage Drift then wondering whether Emmy Laybourne could write a fitting and satisfying conclusion to the Monument 14 trilogy. She did. Sort of.
Spoilers for those that haven't read the first two books but Dean, his brother Alex, and the other survivors have escaped the disaster zone and are living in relative comfort and safety at a Canadian refugee camp, some having been reunited with their families, others yearning for those they have lost. In particular Niko, who is stunned when he discovers Josie, the girl he loves, may still be alive. Josie is alive, and the camp where she resides is vastly different to that of Dean and co. The group set out to rescue Josie, taking pregnant Astrid with them.
What I enjoyed about this book in relation to the others was the real sense of how our characters had suffered to get to this point, despite not all that much time having passed since the start of the series and this point, you can see and feel how all of the events have taken their toll on our characters, forcing them to grow up fast. The danger didn't end with their rescue, and the chase is on to see whether they can reach Josie in time... The story switches between Dean and Josie with each chapter, and, this time around, Josie made this book for me. Her story was by far the most interesting, and the most compelling.
I found myself wondering how the story would progress, and whether things in the end would be tied up too neatly. I did find the ending to be enjoyable and satisfying but - minor spoilers - I felt it was written for a younger audience, had this been geared more towards adults the story would have been vastly different. But even saying that, Emmy Laybourne hasn't been shy with violence and death in the previous two books so it just felt like a bit of a cop out. Overall though, I do recommend this series to those that haven't read it yet and I would like to see Emmy return to the characters in the future, perhaps with another short story.
4/5
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