Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Shift

I was disappointed by this after the strong start of Wool and think it suffers from "middle book syndrome". The political machinations and world building are excellent, as they were in Wool, but there are too few characters for such a long book, and sorely lacking in female characters.

A large part of the book focuses on a character and story we knew a lot about from Wool, and that I didn't need to know any more about. Cutting that entire section would have made for a much better and easier read, rather than slogging through decades of grief.

The time span of the book is hard to comprehend but generally well managed, although I did a lot of checking back to Wool when I had forgotten character names and Silo numbers. You don't want too much of a gap before reading Shift after Wool!

Shift has definitely got me excited for the third book, Dust, and I'm still so invested in the characters and plot. How on earth will this end?!

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monicalaurette's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

“Troy was tired of forgetting. He had decided to remember.”

I almost didn’t think this story was connected to Wool when I first read it. I was wondering almost the whole time how it all connected and if I would ever hear about Juliette again. But as the story went on I was enthralled again. I feel it’s a crime that I didn’t find this series when it first came out and I was still in such a large dystopian kick with my reading because I would have EATEN THIS UP back then. But hey better late than never to the party!

The jump between both different silos and different timelines and years was fun. Trying to figure out what was happening as the story went through to figure out who each person was and how they connected to the overall story of the underground silos. I got to know some people for just a moment and then just see how Silo 1 really works and what they do to keep order when it leaves.

“And so life was lived accidental. It was lived because he wasn’t brave enough to do anything else.”

Because the world building for the most part was already done, this was just extra building to describe how it all came to be - and I really enjoyed it and the journey that Donald went through to to learn what his role was at the beginning, to the lies becoming clear at the end to the true purpose of his involvement. I can’t wait to see what is going to happen when/if Juliette and him meet.

I’m giving this book 4.5 stars because I really liked this book, just not as much as I did for Wool. Also so many things happened and I was feeling like my neck was gonna snap from the whiplash which is okay but my neck hurts now.

“The world had grown as rusty as his memory of it.”

About a chapter before it revealed that Troy & Donald were the same person I literally had the thought of “hey what if they are the same” so that makes me very smart.

I was confused a lot about the importance of Mission’s story but excited to see if there is more that spills in from that time to what happens in the next book since it was Silo 18.

Did NOT expect Donald to do that to Anna, I thought he’d just keep her alive for a little bit to learn more instead of just…killing her right away but glad he shot Thurman. But I felt that if he kept Anna alive longer she would have helped both him and Charlotte in whatever they are about to do. Maybe a hindsight thing for Donny boy.

Not me actually crying about Shadow and how Jimmy was thinking about how ‘oh if he was here he’d be rubbing my leg or meowing at me’ and it made me very sad and go to hug my own cat.

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kirchnerkd's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

beehives's review against another edition

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dark tense

Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

In comparison to the first book in the series (Wool), this book focuses more on the political processes before and during the events of Wool, which might be boring to people who signed on for the science fiction action of the first book but more interesting to people wondering "how did this even happen? how did we get here?". You'll see some familiar characters pop up with a different perspective - some more removed and others more intimate - as well as plenty of new characters. My biggest complaints: so many male characters and a less coherent switch between POVs.

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