Friday, October 24, 2014

The Battle for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi | Audiobook Review

(With all the #diversityinYA talk, I like that Eva Nine has gotten progressively darker on the covers.  Her skin tone is never discussed in the books, so who knows how light or dark she is?)

The Battle for WondLa is the final book in the trilogy, and it tells the story of the ultimate battle.  The tenuous peace between humans and aliens has been broken, and Solace has fallen to Cadmus Pryde.  Eva embarks on a journey to gain some unlikely allies and set all right again.  It's a pretty exciting journey for middle grades; adults may see the ending coming.  Still, it's a pretty pleasant ride to get there.

I feel a little "meh" about The Battle for WondLa.  Maybe I could name this disease of mine:  trilogy fatigue.  I notice that I tend to lose a little interest in the third book of trilogies.  Maybe it's all the pressure on the author to bring two books' worth of plot to a thrilling conclusion.  I felt that the book was a little too long.  I felt like there was more talk, especially talk about emotions, than there was action to balance it out.  I also felt like the pacing of the narration was a little slow.

That's not to say that there weren't redeeming factors.  Eva Nine has really grown into her own person quite well.  I enjoyed seeing her continue to grow even more still in this third book.  She has gone from a sweet, if naive, girl just finding her feet in the wider world to a lovely young lady who fearlessly leads her group.  Eva is compassionate and cares greatly for her "herd."  She always seeks the path of least violence.  And how cool would it be to be able to communicate with all animals, some plants, and all aliens?  Speaking of, it's always fun in these books to meet the different types of aliens.

3 of 5 stars to this one.  It was ok, but not fantastic.

*I received my copy of The Battle for WondLa from my public library.

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