5 Star Book Review: World After (Penryn and the End of Days, #2)

Author| Susan Ee (Website)
Edition| Kindle eBook
Genre| YA- Dystopian
Publisher| Skyscape
Related Posts| Angelfall
Rating| 5 Stars

This post may contain spoilers for the first book, though I'm going to try and keep it spoiler free.  Read at your own risk.

I liked Angelfall well enough, but World After took it to a whole other level.  I don't know where to start with singing my praises.  The story picks up seconds after the first book ends, which made it even easier for me to down the whole trilogy in only a few sittings.  The fast pace continues for the majority of the book, too.  While many sequels fall into the pattern of separating the love interests, few manage it as well as this one.  It was believable that they were apart and when they finally reunited it was a worthy response from either side.

The characters continue to grow, and very few new characters are added.  I loved the way that they expanded on Penryn's mother and sister, two characters I thought were dragging the first book back.  They were their own interesting characters and stopped leaning on Penryn so much to get things done.  I liked that turn around, particularly since I didn't see the merit of either of them before hand.  Dee-Dum also managed to find their way into my heart.  I liked them before, but never really felt they were actual characters until this one.  Before they were rather flat and used as the comic relief.  With a role to play they actually shine!  And then there's Penryn.  I wasn't exactly fond of her in Angelfall, but it took less than a chapter for me to see why she was such a great character.  I hand this over to the author, for Susan Ee had suddenly made Penryn a likable and relate-able character.  Of course, Raffe still stole the show and my heart.

The writing did get better.  After one novel under her belt, Ee finally wrote like she was comfortable doing just that.  I enjoyed everything much more and read the book in a day, which is a rare feat for me.  If you haven't read this series yet, I strongly recommend you give it a try.