The Second Rebel

Firstly, a huge thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for providing me with the the arc for The Second Rebel in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Ok, I say unbiased, but I was totally blown away by The First Sister and have been chomping at the bit to get my hands on The Second Rebel, desperate to read what comes next with Astrid having found her voice and inner strength, plus all things Ringer! Never mind Hiro and Lito and of course Luce following that message…there was just so much hanging at the end of that book and The Second Rebel doesn’t fail in delivering even higher stakes, darker shadows and deeper secrets!

In The Second Sister the principal characters’ stories are very disparate, both geographically and emotionally, there is definitely a large element of maintaining a character roadmap in your mind as you read and follow the very separate, but entwined plot lines.

We see Astrid commencing this next phase in her life as The First Sister of Ceres, which leads to a whole world of grisly discoveries and smoke and dagger activities off Ceres. The development of her relationships with the Aunts and her fellow sisters, Eden and Lily in particular are complex, disturbing, and emotional, a whole maelstrom of feelings come from these alone!

Hiro as a character really comes to the fore in The Second Rebel, I didn’t think I could love Hiro more, but after reading this I really do, and I have to highlight Lito and Luce’s relationship, which definitely brought a major edge to the whole story. I absolutely loved their character arcs and there were tears!

I can’t talk about this book without mentioning the Linden Lewis’ staggering world-building, the worlds, the politics, the people, the history – they are all there and more. Lewis delivers significant and shocking reveals about international and cultural relations between the Asters, Icarii, and Synthetics, a staggeringly jaw-dropping history that is both enlightening and horrifying!

For those who like to have pre-warning regarding content of reads, I must advise that there are no holds barred in the The Second Rebel, it incorporates violence, genocide, experimentation, weaponization of scientific discoveries and more. It also includes relationships of all types and a multitude of parallel plotlines, all of which lead to a dramatic and heart-stopping end of this second book in the trilogy!

As a second book in a trilogy goes, Lewis has truly delivered an emotional and mental gut-wrencher of a read that builds worlds upon the foundations of the The First Sister! This book has left me hanging on the edge of a cliff for the concluding book in the trilogy!

That ending!! wow wow wow. Though it took me a bit to get into the book, the pay off was amazing and I cannot wait for the third one in this series.

This book had me on the edge of my seat and broke my heart well and good. I'm just staring at the ceiling here feeling everything at once! This series is a must read for everyone who's only a little bit into sci-fi!

Right, so let's start my review :)
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc of this book. My opinions are my own.

This books picks up a few months after the ending of The First Sister. Where the first book has its main focus on said First Sister, here the focus lies more on the rebellion. The story is told from a lot of point of views, which I personally enjoyed a lot. For some it might be confusing, but I thought the way we were given small pieces of the big picture were a great way to keep me on edge. Each time a chapter ended and a new one began with a new POV, I felt annoyed and wanted to read more about the part of the story I was currently in. Only to feel the exact same way at the end of the new chapter with the new POV. Every character has their own unique story to tell and I loved reading about each and every one of them. I loved how this book made me think, think about good and evil, and about the worth of the greater good.

I can't wait for all of the storylines coming together in the third book in the trilogy, even more than they did in this book. I don't want to spoil anything but man did those final chapters make me feel EVERYTHING! Heartache, hope, fire... it's all there.

All I can say right now is: Read. This. Series. It's an absolute must-read for all sci-fi fans!

High-stakes, fast-paced, painful and yet full of hope, The Second Rebel is a stunning and worthy sequel that makes me want more.

Content warnings include: violence, mostly off-page torture and experimentation on humanoids (very plot relevant), death, off-page sexual abuse, oppression, blackmail, fade-to-black sex, corruption.
Mentions of: domestic abuse, child abuse, biological/viral warfare, suicide.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The First Sister was one of my top if not most favourite of all reads of 2020. I adored it from beginning to end, so, naturally, I was very excited for The Second Rebel, and had very high expectations.

I am more than happy to report that all of these expectations were met, and more!

The book more or less seamlessly picks up where the previous one left off (making rereading The First Sister right before starting this very rewarding). Astrid, Lito and Hiro are each following their respective goals, all of which become more and more intertwined. There is also a new addition to the protagonists, Luce, Lito’s younger sister, an idealistic artist who just started a new job at Val Akira Labs right when her brother gets into the big corporation’s crosshairs.

The stakes are very high from the beginning, and only get higher and higher. Old and new players affect the board and reroll the dice more than once. New connections and relationships form and are torn apart, we get to explores ones that were only previously hinted at or shown through second hand.

Hiro, who only got flashback chapters in The First Sister, now has their own present chapters and they are an absolute delight of a character to read about. I adored them in book 1 already, but book 2 only cemeted my love for them.

I particularly loved how the book expands the worldbuilding. There are more details about the sisterhood, the Asters, and even the elusive Synthetics. The backdrops again feature both familiar and new places all across the human controlled parts of space, which was interesting to see. And there will be more to be discovered in the sequel…

Hinting at the ending, I won’t say anything other than that I pretty much spent the entirety of the last 30% sobbing my eyes out. It was glorious, is was painful, it was so, so good, and I absolutely cannot wait for the finale of the trilogy.

That was an absolutely incredible sequel to THE FIRST SISTER and definitely avoided the dreaded middle book syndrome. The action was fast-paced, well-plotted and tight, all while keeping the reader gripped from the very first page. My heart was actually pounding as events unravelled and fates collided. This has the sort of scenes that make you want to throw the book across the room (but in a good way!) and shake your fist at the too cruel author.

It's the characters that really shone for me though. There is no chapter POV that bored me and I loved learning more about the people I grew to adore in the first book. Hiro remains an absolute icon, whilst Lito is just so relatable and appealing. I really appreciated the addition of Luciana's POV and she quickly became my favourite fierce character. Astrid also had a compelling journey in the book and I'm eager to see what happens with her next.

The scene is all set for the final book in the trilogy and I can't wait to read it and see where this epic journey through space ends up.

Sometimes a story just connects with you, and I connected with The First Sister so much that I was so sad when I nearly finished it, then really bloody happy when I discovered a second book, this book, was coming out.

I was even happier to get an ARC!!!

The brilliant characters continue to shine in this second part of the epic space story.

I cannot wait for the next book. That ending. Arghhhhhhhh!!!

The First Sister didn’t end on a cliff-hanger per se but it left plenty of story to be told and so I was absolutely delighted to be able to dive straight in with the sequel. And my absolutely only complaint about it is that I will have to wait to get my hands on part three! It’s rare that the middle book of a trilogy can out-do the first instalment, but while I loved First Sister, The Second Rebel just amped up everything – the danger, the connection to the characters, the consequences, everything – and wow did I love love love it!

(Usual spoiler warning: just mentioning characters that appear in book 2 gives away some of the events of book 1, and it’s impossible to place events here without giving away how things went before. In other words – just go read First Sister, it’s bloomin’ brilliant!)

Following straight on from all of the revelations and resolutions of book one, we find our cast of characters further along the plot to bring everything – the Sisterhood on one side, Val Akira labs on the other – crashing down as they so well deserve. But we aren’t stopping there: the genius in the sequel is just how much bigger everything gets, without ever feeling forced. So we have the two factions we’re familiar with, Geans and Icarii, then the Asters – those who left humanity for more distant space, now genetically near-separate and also the victims of industrial-level medical experimentation, and who have more than had enough. And before the book ends, we’ll find out a bit more about the oh-so-mysterious Synthetics, too…

I admit, I was at first a little wary of the way the cast of POV characters increases here: from First Sister and Lito alternating chapters, now we also follow Luce – Lito’s little sister – and Hiro, and more. But it’s never confusing, and I’m slightly awed by how well that was done – it’s just seamless. And it really works helping the reader care for all of these characters, seeing their pain and struggles. A lot of things go wrong, a lot of very VERY dark things happen. There were moments when I put the book down after a particularly harsh chapter, wondering if I’d really been in the headspace for what I’d just read, but then I was always eager to get back into the fray, the non-stop action, and the story expanding on several different horizons.

I don’t know how else to sing the praises of this book as much as it deserves. It was a roller-coaster ride, it shreds your emotions and builds so much more of this gloriously grubby, well-imagined world. Look: just go read it already!!