Reclaiming Shilo Snow

"Reclaiming Shilo Snow" is an even better continuation of "The Evaporation of Sofi Snow" duology. All the story lines are wrapped up in this final/second book. The book begins right where the previous book left off. In this alternate Earth, World War 3 ravaged the planet and made living there more difficult. In the midst of the rebuilding, an alien planet showed up in orbit around Earth. The Delonese, living on this planet Delon, helped humanity recover with new technology and medical advances, seemingly without cost. However, as Sofi learned in the first book (and this is a SPOILER FOR THE FIRST BOOK, so don't read the rest of my review if you haven't read the first book), the Delonese are using human children to regrow their species, harvesting organs and performing experiments on them.

The world is divided according to Corporations, which produced much-needed materials after the war (food, medicine, etc.), and Sofi and her brother Shilo lived in Corp 30, where her mother was the CEO. The CEOs of the Corps form the United World Council along with ambassadors. Miguel is the youngest of the Earth Ambassadors to Delon. The Corps have also created the deadly FanFight Games, in which children compete in a deadly arena which combines reality shows with virtual realities. Shilo was a contestant as the representative of Corp30, fighting to stay alive and beat each level, while Sofi was his programmer who helped to alter the reality and help to keep him alive. After an explosion, Shilo and Sofi were presumed dead- however, Sofi had been captured by people working against humanity and Shilo was abducted quietly by the Delonese.

Sofi was soon to learn that she was one of the children taken and altered by the Delonese when she was 10 years old (now 17) along with her brother Shilo (then 5, now 12). They were the only children to survive the early experiments. This book picks up right where the first left off, where Sofi and Miguel are on Delon searching for Shilo, while Sofi is confronted by her previously hidden memories of her childhood abduction. Interestingly, where we previously only saw Sofi and Miguel's points-of-view in the first book, here, we get both of their points-of-view, plus that of Inola, Sofi and Shilo's mother and the CEO of Corp30. Inola's perspective shed some additional light on the dealings of Earth with the Delonese and what had been happening historically. She ends up being an interesting and sympathetic character, where she had a less 3-dimensional role in the first book.

This book was much faster paced than the first, as we travel quickly through events with Sofi and Inola. I found this one to be much better and harder to put down than the first book. An interesting theme that appears is that it is not only outside forces who are cruel to humanity, but also humanity itself (as we see constantly on the news/in our world). This is a powerful message to younger readers and also a valuable one. I assume this is the main point of this engaging YA sci-fi duology, and I think this is definitely worth a read.

Overall, this was a fantastic end to an interesting duology. The only thing I wish I had seen more of was the build/furthering of the relationship between Sofi and Miguel in this book- it was much more present in the first. That might be just because I'm a romantic at heart- there's certainly enough else in the book to keep the reader engaged. There's great closure in this book and things are ended beautifully. Fans of the first book will need to get their hands on this one!

Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.