April 27, 2014

Review of Monument 14: Sky on Fire by Emmy Laybourne



Release Date: May 28, 2013
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Page Count: 212
Format: Hardcover
Genre: YA/Dystopia

Trapped in a superstore by a series of escalating disasters, including a monster hailstorm and terrifying chemical weapons spill, brothers Dean and Alex learned how to survive and worked together with twelve other kids to build a refuge from the chaos. But then strangers appeared, destroying their fragile peace, and bringing both fresh disaster and a glimmer of hope. 

Knowing that the chemical weapons saturating the air outside will turn him into a bloodthirsty rage monster, Dean decides to stay in the safety of the store with Astrid and some of the younger kids. But their sanctuary has already been breached once. . . .

Meanwhile, Alex, determined to find their parents, heads out into the darkness and devastation with Niko and some others in a recently repaired school bus. If they can get to Denver International Airport, they might be evacuated to safety. But the outside world is even worse than they expected. . . .

Monument 14: Sky on Fire by Emmy Laybourne is the sequel to Monument 14 and the second book in the trilogy. I bought my copy of Monument 14: Sky on Fire about a week after buying Monument 14 and read it one or two weeks after. It had a good amount of improvements over the previous book and I enjoyed it even more than I did the other one.

Emmy Laybourne continued the story of Dean and the kids stuck in the Greenway with Monument 14: Sky on Fire, only this time the story is split into two POV's. One of them is Dean who has decided to stay in the Greenway with several other people and the other is his brother who has left the store with the majority of the kids and is headed to the nearest airport. Each group faces different obstacles like the effects of the chemical gas spill, other people, death, and getting hijacked. The majority of the characters are the same as the ones from the previous book with a few new secondary characters thrown in. I loved how realistic the characters were and how they each had their own distinct personalities. There were several different aged kids and each one was portrayed accurately. On top of that, one of my major faults with Monument 14 was solved, lack of secondary characters. There are definitely a good amount of secondary characters, they both solved and created problems for both groups of kids. There are also several changes in the relationships between several of the characters, the largest being Dean and Astrid. I felt that Dean was being kind of obsessive over Astrid and that their relationship should have been toned down a bit. Other than that there isn't that much more romance in the book, however the book itself still contains more romance than the previous one. Altogether the characters are as realistic as the ones from the previous book and with the addition of more secondary characters give Monument 14: Sky on Fire a substantial improvement.

The world is also expanded with Monument 14: Sky on Fire, while a good portion is still the Greenway other places like the highway, different homes, and an airport are described. The kids have to learn how to deal with these new unfamiliar locations, especially after they lose their bus. The scenery was described pretty well and I enjoyed reading and discovering them. This is definitely a large improvement over Monument 14 which mostly took place in the Greenway. The new locations made the book more interesting and provided new problems and obstacles. While I wouldn't have minded a few more new locations the ones that were given were interesting and descriptive enough to keep me reading.

The third and final book in the trilogy, Monument 14: Savage Drift will be released on May and I am beyond excited for it to come out. Thankfully, I won an ARC of it several weeks ago so I won't have to wait until it releases, if you enjoyed Monument 14: Sky on Fire than you should definitely get Savage Drift when it comes out. If you enjoyed The 5th Wave or are looking for a well-written dystopian YA novel than I would definitely recommend that you read Monument 14: Sky on Fire.


5/5 - Really good book


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