Title: Mirror’s Edge
Author:  Scott Westerfeld
Publisher/Year:  Scholastic 4/6/21
Length:  352 Pages
Series: Imposters #3

Overview

The danger rises and the deception grows in the heart-stopping third book in the New York Times bestselling Impostors series!

Frey’s return to the city of her birth isn’t going to be an easy one. She and her love Col must surge on new faces and bodies in order to infiltrate Shreve by dropping from the sky and landing undetected.

Frey’s sister Rafi — no longer a twin in features, but still a twin by birth — is the wild card. Are the sisters on the same side . . . or are they playing to their own agendas? If their father is deposed from Shreve, who will take control? And what other forces may be waiting in the wings?

My Thoughts

Here we are, back in the insanely engrossing world of the Uglies, where the past never truly led us in the right direction, and the semi truths of today aren’t what they seem. Everything that Frey thought she knew about Rafi and her father isn’t the truth, and that makes every move they make from here on out a question mark. The mission that this story takes us on is multi-pronged. There’s the need to rescue Boss X from the clutches of Schreve, and we don’t know what they will be up against. Frey goes under the knife with Col and several others to camo themselves from the nano dust in the city- creating new identifies for themselves in order ot sneak in, save X, destroy Shreve and hopefully free the city. The republic of Diego is in on this as well partially because that’s where the surg is happening and partially because the end game is for Diego to put Frey in control of Shreve and make the world a better place. The question though is are all the tests and prodding for the benefit of Frey, Shreve, Rafi or something else entirely.

The journey takes us under the radar into Shreve, under ground, where crims reveal secrets to Frey about her home city that she had no idea about. She’s introduced to cliques who may be able to set diversions so they can sneak into the high security prison where X is held, but since these are unknowns to the crew and rebels, we don’t know what’s the benefit and real truth here. Everyone has their own motivation and again we’re in a place where we don’t know who we can trust.

There’s eerie construction happening and we quickly uncover that there are radioactive deposits that Frey and Rafi’s father is looking to dig up in order to create a nuclear weapon. There’s intelligence that tells us that he’s stockpiled it in his tower meaning that they can’t blow him up with out destroying the city. So we’re at an impasse of sorts.

Relationships are put to the test, identities are uncovered and mysteries still hold strong where we don’t know what’s real, what’s illusion and what’s on the allied side.

Many lives are lost, and may twists takes us down a path where we realize that if you can’t fight for yourself, you can’t trust someone else to do it. We watch Rafi take Frey’s persona, her courage and her mannerisms and use them for her own benefit, yet again reminding us that she’s not to be trusted and that she’s only motivated by her own sense of power. We don’t know what that means for the rest of this story, since she’s done something yet again at the end of this installment that raises flags and questions that are impossible to answer.

We learned early on in this series of a death of a family member that was unknown at the time, and that’s been used against Frey and Rafi throughout the first three installments. We have a death of a favorite that was caused at the hands of someone that we were wrong to trust, changing the trajectory for our mains going into book four. We also find ourselves back in Paz at the end of this story, meeting with at least one if not two unexpected characters in the hopes that we can change the future for the better.

In my review for book two, I was left with some many philosophical questions – but in this book, it’s not so much a deep seeking question that I have but rather will we ever live in a time where over-baring power isn’t the only motivation? Where you always have to put someone else down in order to gain power, authority, money, all that comes with being in charge? We’ve seen that there’s a need and hunger for some people to lead, but there are also some who do it with a balance of respect. Sadly, that’s not the case in this story for some of the twisted paths we go down. There’s too much being sacrificed, and I wonder what that means should this story really transpire in the future. I can’t wait until book four now, and I hate how our author does this to me. Leaves me hanging on a cliff, and I have to wait far far too long for the next installment. oh well. Enjoy!