Goodreads Synopsis:
The Changed are on the move. The Spared are out of time. The End…is now.
When her parents died, Alex thought things couldn’t get much worse-until the doctors found the monster in her head.
She headed into the wilderness as a good-bye, to leave everything behind. But then the end of the world happened, and Alex took the first step down a treacherous road of betrayal and terror and death.
Now, with no hope of rescue-on the brink of starvation in a winter that just won’t quit-she discovers a new and horrifying truth.
The Change isn’t over.
The Changed are still evolving.
And…they’ve had help.
With this final volume of The Ashes Trilogy, Ilsa J. Bick delivers a riveting, blockbuster finish, returning readers to a brutal, post-apocalyptic world where no one is safe and hope is in short supply.
A world where, from these ashes, the monsters may rise.
My Review:
Hey everyone, Brigit here. I started reading the Ashes trilogy almost a year ago so it was before I started this blog, so I’m only going to review book three because it is the freshest in my mind and I’m afraid that if I were to review the other two I wouldn’t do them justice. So I will just say do yourself the best favor and read books one and two of the Ashes Trilogy, they are titled Ashes and Shadows. I will also be placing the links to buy them off Amazon and Barnes&Noble in this post.
***WARNING! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ BOTH ASHES (BOOK #1) AND SHADOWS (BOOK #2) DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!!! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS ON THE FIRST TWO BOOKS AHEAD!***
Alright, so there were many many pros to Monsters, yet there were some significant cons. Though that could largely be due to the fact that unfortunately I read Shadows (Book #2) so long ago it was difficult to remember parts of why certain things were happening in this book. Oddly enough I remembered a lot more from Ashes (Book #1) but I think that’s because I loved that one soo much, and often the books we love never leave our memories. Anyway I did remember enough of who the main characters were and the plot line to enjoy this book, and a lot of it came back to me as I read. Not to mention Ilsa placed a lovely recap of characters and their last situations from the second book in the back of this book, so that is definitely worth taking a look at if you were like me and couldn’t remember too much from Shadows.
Monsters picked up literally right where Shadows ended, which was with the biggest cliff hanger ever!! And yes that I did totally and completely remember…..
RECAP: Alex was falling to her doom in a mine shaft after just having discovered that Tom was alive **jumps for joy** . Tom tries to save her but has to let her go when Alex convinces him it’s no use. Chris meanwhile is on death’s door, literally, because a spiked tiger trap door is on top of him killing him, and Peter is still held prisoner by Finn and being tortured.
The action begins instantly, and as a reader your heart will be pounding through a large chunk of this book! There was so much going on at once it was hard to keep track of it all at times. This book had me on my toes throughout, and there was rarely a dull moment. Everyone’s life is on the line now, and each character will go to any means to survive. The gore and graphic aspects of this series kicked up a notch for sure, this book is not for the faint of heart/stomach folks. Be prepared for some nasty zombie awesomeness!! Call me crazy, but the more gore/killing of the Changed descriptiveness the better! I love action filled stories like this!
However, there were some negative things I felt from this book. Monsters is a whopping 671 pages!! That my friends is a mother of a book! So you might be wondering how could it have possibly been that long? What all was put into that many pages? Well let me tell you, there was a TON of descriptions that’s for sure, so much so that it dragged out certain scenes for much longer than was necessary. Not to mention, each scene/event was also dragged out because there were too many point of view shifts that occurred right in the middle of the action, leaving you frustrated and in NEED to get back to that specific character! Monsters is one of those books that leaves you hanging at the end of most of the chapters. Of course that can also be a smart thing on Ilsa Bick’s part because it keeps the readers well reading. So multiple POV shifts kept me anxious but annoyed at the same time. I wanted to get back to the four main characters I loved the most: Chris, Tom, Alex, Ellie! But it wasn’t until after reading those other point of views that are thrown in there that I realized, yes those POVs were necessary for the story to play out accordingly, I just wish it could have been done a little shorter.
Also, readers, hang on to your minds when reading this book, because it just might be blown! There were quite a bit of confusing parts in this book that I had to double back over to make sure I understood how it all worked. This being the last book, most everything you want to understand is explained, however there were a few things I still would have liked to have known by the end. I will tell you this though, by the time you finish Monsters, your heart will be filled with romantic satisfaction at last! And, Ilsa has a sly way of ending this story, it’s an ending that doesn’t quite close up all loose ends, but leaves you thinking.
All and all, I loved the Ashes Trilogy!!! It is probably the most unique rendition of a zombie apocalypse I have ever encountered. Come to think of it, it’s probably my favorite zombie series I’ve ever read! The storyline is unique, the characters are ones you can fall in love with, and the action never stops! Sure Monsters could have been cut down a couple hundred pages, but that didn’t take away from the ingenuity of the story and the reactions/feelings I had throughout! I most definitely recommend you read this series! If you love zombies especially, but even then, because this series is not your typical zombie story, it’s so much more!
Buy ASHES on Amazon, it’s only $2!!! Buy it now!!
Buy Ashes at Barnes&Noble here!
Buy Shadows on Amazon here! Barnes&Noble here!
Buy Monsters on Amazon here! Barnes&Noble here!
Escape Inside the pages 