Book Review: Shades of Earth by Beth Revis

Title: Shades of Earth

Author: Beth Revis

Publisher: Razorbill

Publication date: January, 2013

Stand Alone or Series: Series–this is the finale in a trilogy.

Hardcover: 400 pages

How I got this book: Bought


Why I chose this book: I’d previously read the first two books in the trilogy, which were completely riveting.  I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of the last installment!

Synopsis: 

Amy and Elder have finally left the oppressive walls of the spaceship Godspeed behind. They’re ready to start life afresh–to build a home–on Centauri-Earth, the planet that Amy has traveled 25 trillion miles across the universe to experience.

But this new Earth isn’t the paradise Amy had been hoping for. There are giant pterodactyl-like birds, purple flowers with mind-numbing toxins, and mysterious, unexplained ruins that hold more secrets than their stone walls first let on. The biggest secret of all? Godspeed’s former passengers aren’t alone on this planet. And if they’re going to stay, they’ll have to fight.

Amy and Elder must race to discover who–or what–else is out there if they are to have any hope of saving their struggling colony and building a future together. They will have to look inward to the very core of what makes them human on this, their most harrowing journey yet. Because if the colony collapses? Then everything they have sacrificed–friends, family, life on Earth–will have been for nothing.

Review:

It took me a little bit to get into this last installment–with all the new character’s and a complete change of setting, it was an adjustment.  I started getting worried that the book I’d been looking forward to for quite a while wouldn’t quite live up to expectations.  I shouldn’t have been worried though. 

Instead writing about the common human vs. alien plot line like many other authors have attempted in the past, Revis took the story to a more dramatic and philosophical level by looking at the aspects of right and wrong when it came to landing on a new planet that already has different species, and invading their homeland. 

It’s so easy to get into the character’s heads.  Though it’d been a year since the release of the previous installment, I could easily pick up where I’d left off with Amy and Elder, the protagonists.  Even the new characters that were introduced easily had volume and depth, where I could relate to them and see them clearly. 

And as always, the ending.  An ending, like I’ve said before, can easily make or break a novel.  My favorite types of endings are the kind where an author takes you down to the lowest point a story can go, where you feel there is no possible way for this to end like you want it to.  But then they find a way.  Somehow Revis seems to be an expert in this.  From book one I had no idea how this story would or could end.  But Revis left it in a nice place where I feel content with the ending and am overall happy that I read this trilogy.