Happy Monday! I am finally getting around to sharing my review of Skitter by Ezekiel Boone. The lovely people over at Atria Books sent me an advance copy, and I am so very thankful. This is the second book in the Hatching series and picks up pretty close to where book 1, The Hatching, leaves off.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Tens of millions of people around the world are dead. Half of China is a nuclear wasteland. Mysterious flesh-eating spiders are marching through Los Angeles, Oslo, Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, and countless other cities. According to scientist Melanie Gruyer, however, the spider situation seems to be looking up. Yet in Japan, a giant, truck-sized, glowing egg sack gives a shocking preview of what is to come, even as survivors in Los Angeles panic and break the quarantine zone. Out in the desert, survivalists Gordo and Shotgun are trying to invent a spider super weapon, but it’s not clear if it’s too late, because President Stephanie Pilgrim has been forced to enact the plan of last resort: The Spanish Protocol. America, you are on your own.
My honest review:
I need to preface this review by saying I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE spiders. Seriously. If I see a spider in my house my first urge is to burn down the whole place. I turn into a sniffling, whiny, panicky child and the only solution is the immediate death of the offensive spider. With that being said, I apparently love a good horror book about spiders. Weird, I know! I was head over heels crazy for the The Hatching, and I was happy to see that Skitter held the same intensity for me.
As I’m sure most of you have heard, some book series have been plagued with the “2nd in the series dud” syndrome. I was honestly worried that this would be the case after all the dramatics involved in book 1. I was even a bit leery as I started reading Skitter and saw that the book wasn’t headed at all where I thought it would. Luckily, I can say I was pleasantly surprised.
As I stated above, book 2 picks up pretty close to where book 1 ended. The Hatching was filled with so much unknown so I naturally expected Skitter to have a lot of solutions to the horrible people-eating spiders. That did not happen at all. If anything the end of book 2 left us with even bigger problems than we ever thought possible in book 1. I didn’t even know that was possible!
Skitter is still filled with all the same characters that we came to love in The Hatching, but also introduces some new minor characters to sweeter the story. America is in chaos and let’s just say certain people aren’t taking that too well. At this point almost everyone is trying to find a way to eradicate the spiders, but no one is successful. If it’s even possible, their progress is actually going backward instead of forward. At one point the President institutes the Spanish Protocol and basically cuts up the US into tiny pieces. Fun!
This book could easily be considered a part 2 to the first book. The problems are bigger and more unsolvable, the spiders are HUGE, and still there are no answers. However, even with all of this going on this book is a thrill ride of suspense. Just when you think things can’t get worse, they get 100 times worse. The end of the book was such a major cliffhanger that I kept trying to flip pages thinking I missed something. I need answers Ezekiel Boone!!! You need to finish this horrible scourge asap. At this point I can only assume that everyone will die and the world will be run by giant spiders – my worst nightmare!
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