Ok, here's the deal. This series is so haunting and mesmorizing and Ah-freaking-mazing. I wish that I could have a constant stream into this world. Note* this is not the same as wanting to live in this world, ya know, cause I'd be dead most likely. 
 However, here are a few of my irks. 
 The hot thing right now in books appears to be multiple narrators. It's like authors know how much I DESPISE this. I want ONE storyline. I get it, I get the appeal, I get how they want to tell a story from multiple directions, trust me, I get it and I understand how key it is in stories to know what's going on in other places. BUT I HATE IT. With a red hot burning passion. It ruins books for me. I feel scattered. 
 I hate cliff hangers. 
 I knew this would have one, it's the reason I threw my book across the gym at the end of Ashes. I know Bick loves to torture me for a year while I wait for the next book to find out what will happen next. I will give her props for the cliffhanger not being quite as severe this time. I did not throw this book. 
 I'm glad to see more of other characters, however, I felt it took away from Alex. Here again on the multiple storytellers, but I love Alex, I love her way of speaking, I connected with her. I'm so rarely a fan of teen boy storytellers and we were given not one but three this book. I do LIKE Chris and Peter and Tom, I like reading about them, but I don't enjoy their tellings as much as I did Alex's. 
 I love where the story headed, but I feel it's a very different story than Ashes. Same world, same characters, but what was once a story of survival of oneself and in the wilderness and the coming together, is now groups and lots of people and the badness within those people and not just of the world. 
 I feel this series could be epic. It rivals, and is working it's way into, my top three series. I find myself asking which zombie series to put first: this or Forest of Hands and Teeth. We shall see how the rest of the series plays out.