Alienation- ♥♥♥♥

One thing that has been bothering me a little bit, why is the Thule blood showing up now? I know it needs to happen for Colt to become the Betrayer and all, but I want to know the reason behind it. There has to be one, and it is bothering me to not know. In the first book we saw a few times where the blood seemed to have aided him, but nothing that was too out there.

I also want to know why multiple species seemed to be coming after Colt. Dani had offered up a weak solution, but it was never really confirmed or discussed further. The implant idea doesn’t hold weight behind it. It just doesn’t feel like the answer.

I liked Colt a lot more in this book than I did in the first one! He seemed to be more capable of handling everything that was going on around him. He made several stupid decisions, but that is too be expected. I feel like he went a long way to accept the Thule blood, his family’s role in it, and what that meant for his future. He also started to use a lot more critical thinking when it counted. In the very beginning of the book that was a skill he seemed to lack. He let his curiosity get the best of him in a very reckless way and almost got himself killed. By the end he seemed to think things through a bit more, and lean on people that might be able to help him (even if he was kind of pushed into it at first).

Seeing Dani revert from being this intelligent badass, to someone cowering in the corner was hard for me. I had liked her so much in the first book, and this took so much away from her. I know she was having a hard time being away from her parents, and eighteen months is a long time to be gone, but still. I feel like her reaction was over the top and it damaged her confidence even more. I knew she had some self-esteem issues, but in this book they were much more prominent and they seemed to rely on Colt a lot more than the Dani from Invasion would have. I want Dani to come back into her own, maybe even come out of her shell a bit more by the end of the next book.

We didn’t see as much of Oz in this book. He was around, but not to the degree he was in Invasion. I get why, you had to try to figure out if he was with his father or not. I think he has a hard road ahead of him, and I think book three will be very telling of what kind of person he really is. He will have a lot of self-exploration to do, and he will need to find a way to step out of his father’s shadow (not just for everyone else, but himself too).

The technology that was introduced was pretty impressive. The hover board were my favorite, and they were reminiscent of a book series I read several years ago (Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series). I thought the concept was cool, even if I don’t fully understand the science (even make believe science) behind it. Even though we did get to see the simulation room in Invasion, it was only a brief glimpse and it didn’t show much. Here we got to go through an entire simulation. Colt and I both had the same thought process here: how do they make the injuries really happen? It’s something else I would love an answer to just because I’m curious! The bot and the memory capture I’m a little more… leery of. It just doesn’t seem like a good think. Maybe I’m a little too worried about robots actually taking over the world. Who knows.

The confrontation with Krone and Lobo really showcased the changes in Colt. You could see him embracing the Thule blood and using it to help him instead of being afraid of it. I was also glad that he let Oz carry his dad out of the tunnels to be prosecuted instead of executed. Watching Oz go through all of that was pretty heartbreaking. I really felt bad for the kid. I was glad when Dani and Colt had a birthday party for him. It wasn’t much, but it was a way to show him he still had friends and people that cared about him.

Going forward I’m not sure what I expect. I know from one of the last pages of this book Colt, Dani, and Oz will be in a Thule prison. I haven’t been able to pin down the logistics of that (I realize starting the next book will help with that!), because it seems like the Thule would want Colt dead so he can’t impede their plans. Why would they jail him?