Saturday Pages: NIL & NIL Unlocked by Lynne Matson!!

Hey there guys!

Saturday is here and although I have to work this weekend, I'm quite glad that I'm rather recovered from my stupid cold and I won't be a snot mess at work.

For this week's Saturday Pages I have a new series I have absolutely fallen in love with, and I must thank Paula Stokes for insisting that I read NIL already! It might have taken me a while, but now I'm up to date with the trilogy and bitting my nails waiting for the final book!!

Nil by Lynne Matson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


4 to 4.5 stars! I just couldn't stop turning the pages! NIL was a fantastic book with great characters and relationships between them and amazing mysteries and tension that reminded me so much of all that I loved from LOST (before it got too twisted & weird and stopped making sense!)!!

The book starts with Charley going on about her day until she encounters something that takes her away from her hometown and leaves her, naked, on an island in the middle of nowhere. I really liked how Charley tried to figure things out, tried not to panic (much) and started preparing to survive. Once she got to NIL city, we discover more about the island and its rules and its current inhabitants. I really liked Charley's voice, she understandably reluctant at first, but soon she found herself wanting not to just get through her own days & escape but also wanted to make a difference and figure things out.

Thad is the current leader of the city and the second POV in the book, Charley being the first one. Thad's been on the island for a while and he's trying to do his best to keep the rest of the group safe. He was taken in the same fashion as Charley, as were the rest of the island inhabitants, and he's got a very level head as a leader, although he has his moments as a teenager guy. His voice felt very genuine and he was so passionate about snowboarding and wanting to get his life back & help others do the same too.

NIL itself feels like a character in the book, ever ellusive, never sure if it's good or bad or even sentient to a point? Probably it's more the influence that being there in the island has on the characters, but you are never really sure.

I loved how we started digging on the mysteries of NIL, how we met so many characters and we managed to end up caring for so many of them, unwisely so, given how unforgiving the rules of NIL are, and I couldn't get enough of the interactions & links between the different characters and how each one of them brought something different to NIL & the group, and how NIL affected them differently.

The relationship between Charley & Thad might seem to progress at a rather fast pace, but given the high stakes on the island and how it feels like its own universe, for some reason it worked really well for me!

So yeah, all that I loved about LOST (at least the first 3 seasons, because I stopped watching after that) in book form, with mysteries, high stakes and characters you really get to care about it. Very much deserved 4 stars for Lynne's debut!




Nil Unlocked by Lynne Matson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


NIL Unlocked was one of those fantastic sequels that maintain the feel & magic that you fell in love with in the first book, but also manages to build everything up, and in this case, it is done adding more hints and revelations about the mysteries of NIL.

We got back to NIL and to characters that we've already met, but we also have someone new, Skye, and she's not your usual NIL newbie... She's got inside knowledge and she's also been trained by her dad to survive on tough conditions and tropical islands. She also doesn't arrive in the island by the same usual method and by doing so discovers so much more about the island's secrets and past.

The other POV aside from Skye is Rives, someone we already met in the first book, and a character I liked already, but seeing him here and being in his head while trying to be a good leader and figure out NIL made me like him even more.

I really liked finding out more about what made NIL what it currently is and if only a little bit of what it used to be, as it's always the case with me, I always WANT more. I really liked some of the new characters that get to the island and how their perspective could be very different from those that had been there for longer, how the place you come from can change the way you view NIL... Hell, heaven or purgatory, or simply a place to survive through, or a place to escape from...

In this one I felt like NIL as a somewhat sentient entity was stronger, given how much it felt like that for both Rives & Skye, and how things seemed to align somehow... I'm still unsure if it's really like that, or if it was a case of finding what you're looking for in events, but was some good food for thought when it came to pondering theories in this one!

Rives & Skye made a great team, both romantically & as fighting-against-NIL team mates. It really took them a while to bow down to the pressure of time-ticking and let go of their doubts, but I really liked how their relationship build up.

I was fearing a much more heart-wrenching cliffhanger, so I was relieved when it didn't happen. For sure there's a mystery to be solved and something to finish & get sorted once and for all, but my worst fears didn't realize and for that I'm extremely thankful to Lynne!

Once again, NIL Unlocked was exactly what I had wanted LOST (after season 3) to be and it wasn't! Very much deserved 4.5 to 5 stars to this one! Cannot wait to get my hands on the final book!! Is it May yet??



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