I feel like I've just been sucker punched. In the face. 
 Wow. 
 Uhm. 
 Okay. A review. 
 This book isn't perfect. It has its flaws. But I'm willing to let them slide for the most part because it does some things really well. 
 Like, a lot of this book is spent with some barely teenaged kids on the run. Which, yeah, is exciting, but I don't know that I buy it all the time. The number of times Todd just pushes through the exhaustion and keeps going, sometimes without hardly any food or water. And especially when he's feverish and sick. But, on the other hand, this book just flies by because there's always something happening. So. You win some, you lose some. 
 There's also a lot of unknowns here. And usually, that kind of ticks me off, especially when it takes a long time to figure things out. It's one of the reasons I gave up on The Maze Runner. But here, there's uncertainty, but there's just enough clues to help you--as the reader--not feel so helpless. And even though it takes a long time for everything to be revealed, there have been enough teasers that you start to form your own ideas and have them mostly be confirmed. So, for once, that actually worked out for me. 
 There are enough likeable characters and treacherous villains to keep me flipping pages, needing to find out their fates. (view spoiler)[And I admit I'm not sure I'll ever get over Manchee's death. There were waterworks. (hide spoiler)] And towards the end I got that stupid idea of hope in my head, just like Todd and Viola, that the cliffhanger ending just blindsided me. And, again, for once, I actually care enough about these characters to want to know what happens to them. Which is more than I can say for a lot of YA trilogies I've read recently. 
 So yeah. Wow.