#21 Monument 14, trilogy review

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

(TRILOGY REVIEW)

I first read Monument 14 last year and loved it, i never picked up the other 2 book until recently i saw them on Ebay for super cheap so i picked all 3 up and recently marathoned them whilst travelling back home to Ireland. I managed to read all 3 in 4 days, would have probably finished them much sooner but i had lots of things planned whilst being at home.

Ok so like i mentioned i read this in April 2014 and immediately fell in love with the story. I was worried about reading it again incase i didnt like it as much but im so glad that i was wrong. I initially picked this up as last year i discovered a deep love for dystopian and devoured everything in sight that fell even closely to that genre.

The story follows Dean and Alex brothers who whilst trying to make their way to school but are interrupted by the apocalypse. When their school bus crashes they are subjected to the compounds in the air which when inhaled affect people differently depending on their blood group. Type O's turn violent and will attack anyone or thing in sight, type B are affected by becoming infertile and type AB receive paranoid delusions.

The kids from the school bus ranging from age 5-17 seek shelter in a Greenway in their hometown of Monument, Colorado. There are 14 in total, hence the title of the book (which took me a long time to see the connection, duh Rachel!) A Greenway (for the non Americans) is a large supermarket, kind of like Macro or a really big Tesco. Anyway, the kids seek shelter there away from the compounds whilst their teacher goes to find help, thus leaving them with no adult supervision, every kids dream...

Lets go through some of the main characters with a few slightly spoilerish details...Dean who is 16 and type O, he results in being the main cook for the group and is by and large the main protagonist, Alex, who is Deans 13 yr old brother, definitely the smartest kid in the bunch which results in him building and fixing things, Astrid who is 17 and the apple of Dean's eye, Sahalia who is 13 and majorly annoying, Niko a boy scout who becomes the group leader, Henry and Caroline who are the youngest and most dependent they are 5 yr old twins, Ulysses who speaks next to no english and is around 8, Batiste who is about 9 and is majorly religious, Jake who is 17 and his best friend Brayden who see this end of the world as an opportunity to have a good time and Josie who is around 16 she mainly looks after the kids and Chloe another type O who is super annoying and is around 11 i think.

Basically after they get settled in the Greenway they form a little routine of cooking, cleaning and activities after a while the group realise they cannot stay there forever after a few outsiders inform that if they make it to the Denver airport that people are being evacuated, half the group decide to leave whilst Astrid, Dean and the twins and annoying Chloe stay behind mainly due to the Astrid, Dean and Chloe being type O. The other half take the school bus and attempt to make it to safety. Through a lot of effort and determination and sub plots in between they finally make it! Book 3 follows the group as they try to go back for Josie who went AWOL during book 2, she is being kept at a refugee camp which is more like some military concentration camp for type O's and Niko who has fallen madly in love with her has decided to rescue her.

One of the main themes of book 3 is race, this is something not many people think about when reading but when you are told the race of a certain character (i wont mention who) it changes the way you see that character within the story, it was refreshing as most YA dystopians have this kind of theme running through it.

The ending was... rather plain... im not sure what i was expecting dont get me wrong it was satisfying but it left me wanting more, i needed to know what happened a few months later, it left a gaping hole and i feel rather unsatisfied. The trilogy as a whole was a solid 4 stars for me, each book was action packed and i really enjoyed it, definitely rivals Divergent and The Hunger Games in my eyes!