Review: In the End (In the After #2)

Title: In the End (In the After #2)
Author: Demitria Lunetta
Category/Genre: YA/Sci-Fi/Post-Apocalyptic


See it at Goodreads


She thought it was the end of the world... But it was only the beginning of the end.

It's been three months since Amy escaped New Hope. Since she's seen Baby, or Kay, or Rice. And she's been surviving on her own, like she did before she was "rescued" and taken to what she thought was a safe haven. Then, in the midst of foraging for supplies, her former fellow Guardian's voice rings out in her earpiece. And in a desperate tone, Kay utters the four words Any had hoped she would never hear:

Dr. Reynolds has Baby.

Now it's a race against time, for Baby is in imminent danger, her life threatened by the malevolent doctor who had helped start the end of the world. In order to save Baby, Amy will have to make her way to Fort Black, a former prison-turned-survivor colony. There she will need to find Ken—Kay's brother—for he holds the key to Baby's survival.

But before she can do any of this, she'll have to endure the darkest places—and people—of the prison. And one small slip-up could not only cost Baby and Amy their lives, but threaten the survival of he people in the After.

Demitria Lunetta has created an utterly compelling conclusion to the story she set forth in In the After. Readers of the Hunger Games trilogy will not be able to pit down this book, which is gripping from beginning to end.



I thought In the After was good, more of a well-enough read to spark a curiosity in continuing the series to see where it was going to lead. But I had no idea what to expect when I picked up its sequel, In the End.

To be fair, I have to admit I didn’t remember much how the first one ended. I had bits and pieces of memory, and In the After didn’t provide an over-abundance of refresher in the beginning, but a nice small one. Just enough for me to recall what I couldn’t, and I was glad for that. Lunetta did a great job with the little details to remind the reader of what happened in the first book in case there was any need for a refresher, without making it too clear or obvious. It tied in nicely.

It’s also pretty rare for me to love a sequel so much. There are few authors on my list that have done this, and now In the End is one of them. I like this second installment even better. It was gritty and chaotic and I loved it so much. When I turned to the last page, I was sad I couldn’t continue. I want more! I’m ready for more. This series is the kind of sci-fi futuristic weirdness I’ve been looking for since I started blogging.

We see new characters in this installment, too. A lot of them. But don’t worry, there won’t be much confusion. There’ll be some characters you hate. Some you really like. And some you can’t quite understand.

I want to talk about some particular characters in general also and so I don’t give away many spoilers (since it’s the second installment to a series, it’s hard to keep from doing this) I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail, though if you haven't read I have to just put this little warning here just in case.

There’s Tank. He’s a deranged psycho/pedophile. This isn’t said in plain simple words, but it’s easily implied several times through details and actions. His character felt very foreshadowed at times. Whenever there was a situation/something going wrong, I always knew way ahead he was either a root cause or around about to make more trouble. I often got annoyed at his character, which I guess could be the definite idea behind him… but I didn’t find him very villainous either if that makes sense. He was supposed to be pure evil. I didn’t really feel it most of the time. Just annoyance. Perhaps just me, but that was how it was. Probably my biggest issue with the whole book in general, too.

There’s Jacks. New place for Amy. She meets a new guy. And sounds fantastic. He is a tattoo artist, people. This is what I call a character soul mate. He was protective of Amy, but he had his own little secrets (that she later found out of course). He had his vulnerabilities as well. I only felt like I didn’t know him as well as I’d like to have known him by the end of reading. Maybe I’ll know him better in the next installment. I hope. I’m also pretty curious to see how things turn out because that was an awfully curious ending that seems it’s going to lead to a possible complication. And that’s all I’ll say on that in case you haven’t read it.

And the last one I’ll talk about -- The Warden. Possibly the only character I think didn’t make too much sense. Also another villain type, but not quite villain because he didn’t really seem to have that much of a role to me. I would have liked more on him. More action or words. But he felt… just there. Just a character presence and I didn’t really know him much other than a few details and that he was the leader of the place that Amy had come to stay at in this installment.

With that said, there were a couple disappointments, mostly with some character development in maybe those few areas, but it kept me reading and wanting more despite that. I liked that this installment develops more into the world-building and what the world (and humanity) has become since the outbreak. I also liked seeing more of the politics of it. And the details, despite gruesome at times, provide enough imagery to give you a vivid imagination of the story. It’s frightening. But in a good way. ;)

A definite series to read if you haven’t picked this one up yet!