Title: AerieAuthor: Maria Dahvana Headley
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: October 4, 2016
Where is home when you were born in the stars?
Aza Ray is back on earth. Her boyfriend Jason is overjoyed. Her family is healed. She’s living a normal life, or as normal as it can be if you’ve spent the past year dying, waking up on a sky ship, and discovering that your song can change the world.
As in, not normal. Part of Aza still yearns for the clouds, no matter how much she loves the people on the ground.
When Jason’s paranoia over Aza’s safety causes him to make a terrible mistake, Aza finds herself a fugitive in Magonia, tasked with opposing her radical, bloodthirsty, recently-escaped mother, Zal Quel, and her singing partner Dai. She must travel to the edge of the world in search of a legendary weapon, The Flock, in a journey through fire and identity that will transform her forever.
In this stunning sequel to the critically acclaimed Magonia, one girl must make an impossible choice between two families, two homes—and two versions of herself.
Can we take a moment to admire the covers for this series? Done? Okay.
We start off months after the end of Magonia, a year after it all began. Aza is on earth wearing a shell, Dai and her mother are imprisoned, and all is well. Except, nope! When someone spots Aza's doppleganger, the girl that should have grown up on earth, things start to get crazy.
So, I have mixed feelings on this one. I truly loved Magonia. I loved how Aza and Jason would bth spout random facts. But that didn't seem to happen as much in this installment. I loved Jason's recitation of pi. Again, that wasn't there so much. All the little things that made Magonia different and special were dulled down. There were some parts that were generally very predictable.
Another character that was dulled was Dai. Okay, it's not so much that but that we hardly saw him. I would have loved to see some real character development with him. But all we saw of him were little snapshots and then at the end. He randomly does a 180 without any warning, and I still can't figure out why.
Speaking of the end... I'm not sure how I feel about it. If this series were going to continue on I would say the ending was perfect. But it was left so open. Open enough that I'm just confused. Since this is the series ender, I'm a bit baffled. As a second book in a trilogy it would have worked. But I think it was just too ambiguous and open ended to be a very satisfying series end.
Reasons to read this book
1) You loved Magonia and need to know what happens a year down the road.
2) The world is still fascinating.
Reasons not to read this book
1) Magonia's ending was pretty solid
2) This one wasn't quite as magical as the first
Overall
I think it missed the mark. I still enjoyed it enough, but I was fairly disappointed.
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