✨ jami ✨'s Reviews > The End

“I’m fighting and I’m winning and I’m living. The full package.”

I loved this series when I was in late primary school / early highschool. Then I stopped reading it, fell behind, forgot everything. In 2016 I restarted it, vowing to finish the series once and for all, AND NOW I'VE DONE IT. YIPEE!! I FEEL SO ACCOMPLISHED.

so I really love this series overall like, by no means is it perfect. But it makes me happy. I just really love the characters and the concept and the world. I've mentioned it in like, every single review of these books, but the timeline and communities are soo well done here. The entire series isn't exactly in chronological order (the first book is set 50% into the timeline) and that makes it really interesting. Also, Charlie Higson put a lot of time into developing politics and tension and culture between each different group which super sets it apart from most dystopians like this.

I think there was alot of wasted potential in terms of The End. The book before set up all these new exciting characters and groups, gave them extensive background, and then doesn't even capitalise off of it. I was waiting for certain characters to appear but it didn't even happen until 25 pages before the end. This would have been much better if they were there from the start. And to be honest, that was the biggest letdown of this book.

On one hand, I DID love the moments where did see certain characters come together. And the reappearance of some favourites who weren't in the last couple books made me happy. Also, one of the characters was confirmed as being gay and I REALLY liked the scene where it happened. It was done very well and I just love that character so I was happy for them. They deserved a boyfriend though ://

One problem this book had was stagnation. The entire first half was leading up to the big battle but I don't think it developed tension enough so it was kind of boring. The second half was INTENSE though and made up for it. The major problem with this book though was it's abrupt ending. Ok, I'll admit the Sam/Ella bit got me (THIS WHOLE SERIES HAS JUST BEEN ABOUT THEM TRYING TO REUNITE AND THEY DID IM CRYING) but there needed to be an epilogue or something. We have no idea how these characters bounce back from this massive, life changing event and a flash forward would have massively serviced this book. There are things I NEED TO KNOW and I DON'T KNOW THEM. I also think this book didn't kill enough major characters, which is weird but yeah. This book got me hooked on it's 'HE JUST KILLED THAT CHARACTER' moments and while one death in particular hit me hard, I think overall, considering the sheer size of this battle, they all felt way too safe.

Okay, overall I'm super glad I finished this series. I'm not gonna say it's the MOST QUALITY series I've ever read but heck, I had an absolute blast reading it. Super entertaining. Makes me want to read ALL the dystopian/apocalyptic books. And I genuinely think, beside maybe the Gone series, this is the best dystopian worldbuilding I've ever seen. I just wish it hadn't left me hanging so bad. I want to know more, I want to see more character interactions, I want to know how they bounced back from this !

Characters I would die for
- Achilleus: my son, deserves the world. THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT *kisses fingers*. Highkey exists to retell the Iliad in the dystopian setting am I here for it uhh hell yeah
- Jordan Horden: UNDERRATED. I love him !!! Too smart, too good. A Tower of London legend
- Jester: a snake but still deserved better. Got me emo.
- Maxie: MY GIRL. Everyone should pay more attention to her. Badass in charge
- ED. MY BABY. MY BOY.
- Small Sam and The Kid; TOO PRECIOUS TOO PURE. I love The Kid so much!!! and their friendship?? makes me sob. Iconic
- Patrick: WHEN THEY TOOK HIS DOG AWAY AND HE CRIED? I CRIED TOO!


This is more of a 3.5 star but I HAD A FUN TIME OKAY ITS GETTING ROUNDED UP