3.5 stars. 
 At long last, I'm done reading this series to my boys as their bedtime story. I suspect I would have liked this one more if I hadn't read all five books back-to-back. By the time we were shortly into this one, I was tired of Gregor. I needed a break from him, and his drama, and wondering why his Overland school hadn't kicked him out yet. Yet the boys wanted to finish, so I pushed onward, and this one is pretty good. 
 This was the first time I added the 'violent' shelf to one in this series, though they've been becoming more increasingly bloody and/or violent. My younger son (11) is not a fan of that sort of thing, but I suspect he tolerates it better than the blossoming forbidden love between Gregor and Luxa, which is touched on more here than any of the others. I found it fairly eye-rolling, but that might be because I have two boys (the other is 13) that have NO interest in romance, and so it's a stretch to imagine 12-year old Gregor as being so ga-ga. But hey, he's been through a lot the last couple of years, and it certainly changed him, and maybe matured him too. Still, it did not stop the 11-year old from putting his hands over his ears when I got to any "mushy" scenes, haha. 
 Anyway, the culmination of the series involves a war between rats and humans, and once again Gregor is right in the thick of it. Giving Lizzie some more attention (and less to Boots) was a welcome change for me. As ever, Ripred remains our unanimously favorite character. Oh, he is such fun to read aloud too! 
 (view spoiler)[ Collins does a decent job of tying things up and providing resolution, while at the same time leaving a window of opportunity, should she ever want to come back to this world (worlds?) and characters. It was somewhat of a 'meh' ending after so much action for so long, but it was probably as good as it could be. (hide spoiler)] 
 I still think this would make a fine movie series. Maybe after the Hunger Games series is all done in the theaters...