Friday, April 11, 2014

Friday Reads: ARC Review of Sunrise by Mike Mullin!

For this week's final Friday Reads entry, I have the review of the final book in the Ashfall trilogy. Thanks a lot to Tanglewood Press for approving my ARC request on NetGalley!

This book is part of so many of my challenges! Since it's the final book of the trilogy it's part of the 2014 Series Challenge, as an ARC is part of my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge and ARC April and as dystopian/postapocalytpic book is part of my Dystopian Reading Challenge 2014!










Sunrise (Ashfall, #3)Sunrise by Mike Mullin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Getting approved for Sunrise via NetGalley was the final push that I needed to finally start reading this series and I have to say I am mighty happy that I did! Thank you so much Tangledwood Press for approving my ARC request!

This was a fantastic series in one of my favourite genres! I love postapocalyptic and dystopian stories, and the Ashfall series is the perfect mix of both. We start from what is our normal life and through catastrophic events we're left in a new and terrifying world, without clear rules and nothing but doubts about the future.

Sunrise is quite the epic conclusion to this great trilogy. From the very beginning of the book we hit the ground running, since we start at the point were Ashen Winter left us, ready for a showdown and confrontation. As always I'll try my best to keep this review spoiler free, but some spoilers for the previous books can be expected.

Alex and Darla are two characters that I really loved in each and every page. They're teenagers that grow and raise to the challenge of their tough situation and that with their flaws still manage to have me rooting for them page after page. They have this wonderful relationship full of love, companionship, teamwork, respect and friendship. They butt heads occasionally and always manage to use each other strenghts to fix whatever problem that they're thrown in their way... and trust me, they get thrown plenty of tough crap at them in Sunrise!

Where Ashfall was about surviving a catastrophe and Ashen Winter was about deciding how to survive in the world that resulted after the catastrophe, Sunrise is all about deciding how to stop thinking of just surviving and think about how to live. Thinking about long term, about rebuilding, about the choices that will shape the world you're building for yourself.

Sunrise has plenty of action and fight in it, but also plenty of planning, of building, of politics even! Alex finds himself wishing he could ignore the mantle of responsability he's taken on, but he finds that he's good at being in charge and other people agree with him. I really liked seeing how sometimes the so called kids were better than the actual adults at adapting and realizing the change of the situation.

Sunrise has a large cast of secondary characters that were perfectly fleshed up, which helped a lot with not getting them confused or finding yourself wondering "who was that again?". I'm also glad not many of them were killed, even if there were some really tough parts in this book, about choices and the consequences. And if there's a character that irritated the heck out of me, it was Alex's mum. I just couldn't understand her mindset at all, no matter how hard I tried... I actually felt like slapping her a pair of times!

This was a fantastic and full of hope ending, despite all the hardships and tragedies that happened. Alex and Darla never stopped dreaming and fighting for a chance at a future together and they made room in their dream for a growing number of people that took their dream as their own too. Very much deserving of 4 to 4.5 stars!



View all my reviews

12 comments:

  1. Yay! I'm glad this was such a strong conclusion to the series (irritating mother and all) Pili! I read the first book and loved it, so I can't wait to finally get caught up. I've been waiting to read a lot of second books in a trilogy until the third book has come out so I can just read them back to back and not struggle to remember what happened and who everyone is:) So happy you loved this!

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    1. I had postponed reading the whole series till I got the third book, it's always better to binge read so you have everything fresh!
      You need to read this one, Jenny!

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  2. I was forgotten I have this ARC! woah! thanks for this review!
    I really enjoyed the previous two books and reading your review makes me want to read this one soon!
    Great review Pili!

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    1. Thank you, Lis! You really need to read this one soon!

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  3. Ahhh, a conclusion novel! And a good one, at that! Action, excellent secondary characters, beautiful relationships - sounds fabulous! I'm so glad that this series worked out for you, Pili. Fantastic review!

    Alyssa @ The Eater of Books!

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    1. Thanks a lot, Alyssa! I'm so glad that most of the conclusions or final books I've read as of late have all been great!

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  4. Great review Pili! I've read countless reviews of this book that says I have to read it. Once I feel like a dystopian again, this will be high on the top of my list.

    Jeann @ Happy Indulgence

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    1. This is a fantastic dystopian series, Jeann!

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  5. Awesome review. <3 I'm glad you enjoyed this series :D I have yet to read this final book.. not sure when I will feel the need to, lol :p But agh. I'm sorry his mom annoyed you. Sounds a bit awful, hih. But glad the rest of the book was good :) Thank you for sharing. <3

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    1. Hopefully soon, it was a fantastic conclusion for the series, Carina!
      Thank you sweetie!

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  6. Okay, I'm not reading your review yet because I've only read the first book so far, but I'm so happy to see that you liked it! The post-apocalyptic world that Mike Mullin writes is AMAZING, and I can't wait to finish up the series soon.

    Btw, that secret author project that we're working on that we mentioned last month? Mike is involved in that, so...just keep an eye out for that in May. ;)

    Wendy @ The Midnight Garden

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    1. The series was amazing, and this was a fantastic final book for it! Hope you can read Ashen Winter & Sunrise soon!
      Oooooh, I'm so gonna be stalking the blog even more in May! =D

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¡Muchas gracias por vuestros comentarios, leerlos me alegra el día!/ Thanks a lot for all your comments, reading them brightens my day!!