Review Detail

Book Two of the Escaping Eleven Trilogy unfolded much differently than I expected. I thought now that Eve and Wren were on the surface they would join with other escaped humans and plan for a way to free the compound. The plot wasn’t as straightforward as that and as a result, was very believable. Never having read or learned about survival skills on the Earth they did not know what was safe to eat or the dangers of stagnant water. Faced with starvation, sickness, and imminent death, Wren convinces Eve to return to Compound Eleven.
Eve’s feelings of resentment for Wren and her hatred for the injustices faced in the compound are understandable if not very pleasant to read at times. Wren continues to work towards bettering her life and finding out the truth about why the leaders of Eleven are keeping everyone prisoner by not revealing that the Earth’s surface is habitable. It takes a long while for Eve to overcome her own misery to join his plan to make life better for all citizens.
So many interactions felt on point for how things may occur if this was real making it a book easy to pick up and hard to put down. However, there were some parts that were a bit farfetched to me. The ease with which Eve can keep sneaking out to the surface without anyone catching her and no electronic monitors whatsoever to detect her feels farfetched. The number of her enemies that are dealt with and even when people suspect her, she still escapes the consequences doesn’t jive with the super strict and unjust structures that the book has established.
Overall, this book was interesting and made me want to read the last book in the trilogy. There are a few plot elements that I thought were there for convenience in making the events unfold in a favorable way for Eve but since this is a work of fiction, I guess that is okay. This continues to be an intense read full of action and suspense.