#Review - Hover (The Taking #2) by Melissa West #YA #SyFy

Series: The Taking # 2
Format: Paperback, 352 pages
Release Date: August 13, 2013
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Source: Library Loan
Genre: Science Fiction, YA

Fans of the online favorite Gravity will be itching for the highly anticipated sequel that finds our heroine fighting for her life on a distant planet.

Hover by Melissa West

On Earth, seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander was taught to never peek, but if she hopes to survive life on her new planet, Loge, her eyes must never shut. Because in this world, pleasure is everything, held up by a ruling body that keeps their people in check by giving them what they want and closing their eyes to what's really happening around them. The only hope Loge has is to move its people to Earth, and they have a plan.

Thousands of humans crossed over to Loge after a poisonous neurotoxin released into Earth's atmosphere, nearly killing them. They sought refuge in hopes of finding a new life, but what they became were slaves, built to siege war against their home planet. That is, unless Ari and Jackson can stop them. But on Loge, nothing is as it seems…and no one can be trusted.

Hover is the second installment in author Melissa West's The Taking trilogy. After the events of the Taking, Commander designate Ari Alexander is now residing on the dying planet of Loge with the Ancients who she doesn’t trust and who don’t seem to trust her and Jackson Locke the boy who saved her but also betrayed her in not letting her know soon enough that Earth was in trouble. Unfortunately, due to the symbiotic relationship between the Ancients and the humans, many humans were also poisoned, Ari among them.

Ari, still reeling from the fall out back on Earth, is now part Ancient thanks to Jackson and now has to deal with the powerful Zeus Castello. The maniacal leader, Zeus, is dangerous and he continues to threaten the humans on Earth. With the former President of the Parliament replaced with someone else, Ari is given an impossible task from the leaders on Earth. She must kill Zeus in order to save humanity. Zeus literally has many humans who fled to Loge in order to remain alive. 

Now, they are pawns in a much bigger game and Ari must find a way to survive until she can find allies who are willing to help her return to Earth. As this is a new world, readers are introduced to a new cast of characters including Mami, Emmi and Vill. Zeus is the villain you never know what he's going to do next. We get to see what a crazy evil guy he is and the way he treated everyone around him and his plans for Ari if she survives his brutal training. While Zeus is the leader of the Ancients, it appears that some, like Emmi are looking towards Ari to help them survive and get away from Loge before it's too late.

As this is the bridge to the finale of the series, Ari has to work things out with Jackson because there's really no alternative. He's had her back for awhile now, from the moment she opened her eyes in the first book. And, yes, while he may have left out some important clues as to what's coming for Earth, he continues to be there to save her life even at the expense of being brutalized by her own grandfather. Ari proves that she can be a leading character, but her journey is far from finished thanks to a cliffhanger of an ending which leads back to Earth.

At this point, I am happy that the library was able to borrow this book and the finale from another library so that I could read them back to back without waiting for another year to see what happens. Review for third book shortly!

Amazon