Zenith, by Julie Bertagna

Okay, this book was really quite fascinating! This is the sequel to Exodus, which I reviewed not long ago, so you should remember it. It takes place in the future, not quite the dystopian series, but definitely post-apocalypse. It takes place shortly after Exodus ended, where Mara, the girl that the story follows, has escaped from the New World on a huge ship with a couple dozen of her friends, set for Greenland.

It was a tiny bit confusing, this book, because it was one of those that followed multiple points of view, depending on the chapter. Most of the time it was about Mara, other times, though rarely, it was about the boyfriend she left behind, the cyber-Fox, who now lives under his old city, and then the rest of the time it was about this totally new character, named Tuck, who joins Mara's group of friends later. Tuck's world is cool, because it reminds me of the territory of Cloral from the 2nd Pendragon book, where everyone lives on the water. It's the same thing here. Tuck's lived his whole life on a whole city of connected boats, surrounded by water, and he doesn't believe much in the concept of Land. Weird, huh?

Since I read Catching Fire just before this book, I was still kind of thinking about the set up of that, so I guess I kept getting reminded of it. It isn't a game, but Mara and her friends have to work really hard to survive when they reach land, because it's winter.

An interesting part of the story is that Mara's got a very wide array of love interests. Much more than is fair in just one book. =P She's a heart-breaker. Well, first she has the Fox, who she left behind so she could take all the refugees to a better place, but she still connects with him through her cyberwizz sometimes. Not often though, and eventually her power dies, so that's not good. Then there's Rowan, who was one of her close friends on her home island Wing, but was a slave in New Mungo before getting rescued again. Then Tuck shows up and joins the group, and he falls in love with Mara. He's too much of a stranger though, so he doesn't really have a chance.

It's really hard to describe this book, but I found it an extremely satisfying read. I really liked it whenever one of the characters found an old 21st century artifact, like a digital camera, or a cigarette lighter or something, and the author describes the object so well that the reader knows what it is, but the characters in the book has know idea what the thing is for until they discover the purpose. Also weird is when they discover a strange symbol, what looks like a snake winding around a stick, and they have no idea what it's supposed to mean. Is that a clue that this --> $ <-- will no longer be important in the future? Hmm... Well, I do love books that keep you thinking even after you've closed it. I think there might be a sequel to this, though the release date is unknown, and anyway, it seemed to have a pretty satisfying ending.