Review : The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe
The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe
Pages : 288
Genre : YA, Speculative fiction
Series : Fallen World, book 2
My Rating : 3,5/5
From the book’s jacket :
My Thoughts :
When I read The Way We Fall last year, it was one of my favorite post-apocalytic novel of 2012. I loved the quiet pace, the introspective aspect of the narration, the gloomy atmosphere and the absence of the typical love triangle. It made the book feel more realistic and mature, and I was excited to see where the story would go from there.
The Lives We Lost took a bit of a different route; from the start, the danger is more present as the characters find themselves on the road. If the danger is a constant in their lives, I wouldn’t say the novel is packed with action. There’s more happening than in the first novel, but I still felt it was a slow story (in a nice way). The characters are faced with some very hard decisions, difficult circumstances and unfathomable consequences. It’s harsh, but realistic.
What I liked less was the addition of the love triangle. It was sort of predictable, with Kaelyn’s best friend coming back into the picture after so long, but I could have done without. To be clear though, the novel isn’t heavy with romance; Kaelyn and her friends have a lot more important things to think about. But the hints are there, often enough to have annoyed me. Can’t we have a young adult trilogy without some geometric love story? Does everyone really find themselves into those? It never happened to me, and I don’t think I’m such a unique specimen, you know?
Anyway, I liked The Lives We Lost, even though I thought parts of the plot felt a bit forced or predictable. But these aspects are well balanced with positive ones : new characters that add to the story’s complexity, a well developed world-building that expands outside the island, an adventurous story with lots of suspense.
Also, can I say “Yay!” for the Canadian setting? I have absolutely nothing against my american neighbors (quite the contrary!), but it is so fun and refreshing to be reading a post-apocalyptic novel in a setting I know at least a little!
I will absolutely be reading the next book. I have a long wait ahead of me though, as The Worlds We Make is planned for February 2014. Sigh! But for those of you who like not to wait too much between each book, it means now is the perfect time to start the series!
Series Reading Order :
- The Way We Fall
- The Lives We Lost
- The Worlds We Make (coming February 2014)
Yeah, why do so many books have to have love triangles? Does that really happen that often in real life?
I am not a fan of the dreaded love triangle either but I am happy to see that you did enjoy this one overall. I have both books on my shelf and really need to get around to reading the first one because I think I could really love this series. Fabulous review!
I’m kind of a sucker for love triangles, so I can’t really relate to that part of the post haha But great review! This looks interesting (: And yay for the Canadian settings! Being Brazilian, I really enjoy it when a novel is set somewhere other than America every once in a while haha
Aww, I get it though! I used to loooove love triangles! They create tension, make you guess and sometimes surprise you. But there’s just too many of them for me now.
I have to say though, that the triangle in this book isn’t super romantic. There’s a lot of tragedy around it. So it made it more tolerable for me. I think my opinion will depend a lot on the last book! 🙂
You always make me so curious about these books! Now I’m dying to read this series because of the tragedy surrounding the love triangle haha