I’ll admit I was a little confused when I first started this audiobook. I listened to the prior audiobook in the series earlier this month, and I had been so looking forward to seeing what would happen next to Molly, the junior-high kids she’s been protecting, and the others they picked up along the way. Instead, this book is all about a group of people we knew some about in the prior three books but who felt more like a side plot than a main plot. This group becomes the main plot of this book, and this book also marks the shift away from the overarching prison theme of the first three books in this six-book series. I think the overarching theme of the next three books set within this larger series is going to be the work groups. At times, this book was hard to listen to because, essentially, the work groups are people forced into slavery by the work group bosses. Each work group has its own personality, so to speak, with some taking better care of their worker … but only because of the riches a healthy worker can bring to the boss. But to hear the work group bosses and other higher-ups in the organizations talk about people as if they are a commodity, to hear them talk about people only in terms of “dollars and cents” is just hard to hear. People shouldn’t be treated that way! Some groups are quite brutal, for instance, killing pregnant women because they won’t be able to work hard while they’re pregnant, and getting the return on investment from the second future worker (the child) is years in coming.
The book starts with a well-planned escape from one of these work groups. Of course, things aren’t easy: nature causes problems, the work group boss and crew hunt for the escapees (and get very close a few times!), and most strangers they run into aren’t what they seem. It was wonderful when this beleaguer group finally found temporary refuge in an unlikely place with an even more unlikely group of people. The author managed to tie this book—and probably this entire final three-book part of the series to the prior “trilogy in a longer series”–to something that happened in Book 3. Clearly, this discovery is going to jump-start the next book, making our whittled-down band of four strikes out again, this time in search of loved ones (and old friends) they’d been separated from, even if they aren’t sure they are still alive. The epilogue was the perfect capstone, giving the reader—finally!—a glimpse of Molly and her crew. Just from the taste the epilogue gives us, we get a sense the work groups will continue to cause difficulties in this book as well; where Molly is at, they haven’t taken over. Looking forward to the next book to see how (and if) the two separated groups come together.