Title: Into the Still Blue
Author:  Veronica Rossi
Publisher/Year:  Harper Collins Pub 1/28/14
Length: 400 Pages
Series: Under the Never Sky #3

Overview

he earth-shattering conclusion to Veronica Rossi’s epic Under the Never Sky trilogy, and sequel to the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Through the Ever Night.

Their love and their leadership have been tested. Now it’s time for Perry and Aria to unite the Dwellers and the Outsiders in one last desperate attempt to bring balance to their world.

My Thoughts

I’ve been waiting some time now for the conclusion to this trilogy, wondering what was going to happen, who was going to make it and who was going to double cross whom.  We weren’t left wanting in this conclusion.

At the end of Through the Ever Night , book 2, we see a merging of groups, the Outsiders and the Dwellers are left to work together in a sense, because Reverie has been destroyed by an Aether storm, and while some of the dwellers were able to escape with Hess, some were left behind, or chose to go with the Outsiders.  Soren, Hess’s son is one of those, and he comes to play a very important role in book 3.

Also in book 3, we are still dealing with the emotions between Perry and Roar, a brotherly bond that seems to be broken, and the rift somewhat caused by the death of Liv, Perry’s sister and Roars beloved, and partially by Aria – because she chose to leave to save Liv with Roar, and Perry thought that she was leaving him.

All complicated, but you do have to remember that they are still just barely adults – so this is a nice thing to deal with.  In addition to all the relationship struggles, the storms are getting worse, reminding everyone of what happened when the Unity happened, when the storms became somewhat constant and there was no way to avoid them.  That’s when Pods were formed and people were cast out into the wilds to fend for themselves.

This story takes us on the journey of the Tides and surviving Dwellers trying to survive literally, while trying to get their hands on a means of transportation to get them all to the Still Blue.  they also need to rescue Cinder since he’s the only one that is known to be able to control the Aether and has a chance of getting them through the barrier of an Aether wall that’s surrounding the Still Blue.  This is the basis for a majority of the story.

What i really enjoyed here is that while i like to pride myself on knowing who’s going to be on which side, and who can be trusted, i kept second guessing myself.  I never knew if Soren and Hess were on the same side, on the side of the Tides, or completely at odds.  While we knew Sable’s motives, and knew that they were evil, we didn’t know the motivations of all of those among the Horns, his tribe, and were left to wonder who was going to be a help or a harm.

There’s a lot of anxiety in the sense that you don’t know who’s going to survive and make it through, and even if everyone will find the Still Blue and if it’s what the expectations and theories say that it is.  I enjoyed the journey, but I don’t know if i enjoyed the end.  There’s a piece that i wish was a bit different, but i think that maybe it would have been a bit too much of a happy ending and who wants that right?  I think that there’s a need for certain characters to not make it to the end, and for some to find new friendships in odd places.

It gives you an interesting take on life in the future, although i still don’t know what caused the Aether storms.  I think that there was a hint about some magnetic field thing happening, but i typically prefer when a dystopian story gives us a back story to understand as well.  not a huge flaw here, just something that i’d like to understand more.  I guess the only question that remains is if we’ll get another novella about any other characters now that the trilogy has ended.  we had the nice story about roar and liv – so i wonder if there’s more that can be done given what we saw occur throughout this series and towards the end.