Title- In the Afterlight
Author- Alexandra Bracken
Pages- 535
Rating- 3.3 out of 5
Companion/Sequel/Other- Third and final book!
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! ONLY READ IF YOU’VE FINISHED THIS BOOK!
If you saw my review for Never Fade, then you would know I really enjoyed (almost)everything about that book, except for Ruby. The same goes for this book, except now you can add Ruby and Cole to the mix. I’ll start off with what I didn’t liked about this book.
Ruby and Cole- I can’t explain to you how much these two frustrated me in this story. Now i can’t deny that these two work well together, but that’s because they’re so similar. To me that was a bad thing. They both want the same thing, to free the camps, but they wanted to go about it by fighting and killing, which, yes, there was obviously going to be a lot of that, but they wouldn’t even listen to anyone else’s ideas. They just shut down anyone’s plan. Also, these two had so many secrets from everyone, it pissed me off. Every other word from them was “you can’t tell anyone”, “no one else can know” “this stays between us”. Da
mn, it frustrated me to know end.
What pissed me off the most, was the way Ruby and Cole treated Liam. Talking down to him, treating him like he’s useless, like he can’t fight, or help. He freaking escaped from a camp, survived on the run, and took care of Chubs and Zu. Now, what? He can’t do anything? I don’t think so!
COMMUNICATION- Oh my god! This is what made me want to throw this book across my room. Except, I was reading on my ereader, and I couldn’t do that, but I was tempted. As I said before, so many secrets were kept from one another. If they just talked to each other, told each other the truth, so much could have been avoided!
Moving on to what I liked about this book:
Plot- I really liked where this story started off, and was 
heading. As with the rest of these books, this one had a lot of surprises. I enjoyed seeing them finally work out a plan to free the kids from the camps and expose the truth. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must be to wrap up a series, but I felt this one did a decent job. I didn’t even see the big twist coming: Clancy was controlling Ruby! What the actual hell?
Characters- As always, I loved the characters. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. These characters are fun, strong, badass, and real. I loved seeing all these characters that we know and love come together and work towards a common goal. People who you’d think wouldn’t work well together, surprisingly did. Also SUZUME was back! YESSSSS!
Ruby and Liam- Now as frustrated as Ruby was, I do have to say, I really loved her when she was with Liam. I adored all the Ruby and Liam scenes. These two, for all the flaws, are perfect for one another.
Chubs and Vida- This was just EVERYTHING! I have nothing else to say but that!
Cole’s death- I don’t know how I feel about it. To be honest, I didn’t really like Cole that much. I mean,
I didn’t hate him, but I also didn’t care much for him and I think most of that had to do with the way he treated Liam. I did feel sad about his death though, mainly because of Liam. I mean, Liam had just found out about Cole being a Red. I really thought they were on there way to fixing there relationship, but then he dies? Are you kidding me? I would’ve loved to have watched Liam and Cole get there relationship back. I could’ve seen myself growing to really like Cole.
So those are my thoughts on In the Afterlight by Alexandra Bracken. Let me know what you thought about the conclusion below!
by reunite with old characters. CHUBS! LIAM! Even though both reunions were completely different and surprising, it was amazing to see!
‘s league. She just seemed like a completely different person, at least until she got her friends back: Chubs and Liam. With them by her side again, she seemed like the same old Ruby, whom I did like. Without them, she was mean, rude, and just cold. I also didn’t like how she trusted Cole. I get that he looks like Liam, but he’s not Liam. You don’t know him, so why trust him? Why keep a secret from Liam, because Cole asked you to? You already messed with his memories, now you’re going to keep a secret from him about his brother? You should be trying to earn his trust back, not keeping secrets. It frustrated me.
the characters- Ruby, Liam, Chubs, and Zu. Seriously, they work so well together and are just an all around great team. I couldn’t wait to find out more about these characters, especially Ruby.
lot of people seem to love or dislike the romance. Me? I’m on the love side. I absolutely adore Liam and Ruby and definitely think they make a great couple. You can see the connection from the beginning, and it definitely took some time to develop but I loved it. Liam is absolutely amazing and one of my favorite lines from this book came from him:
Random Thoughts 