Shades of Earth by Beth Revis

Publisher's summary: Amy and Elder have finally left the oppressive walls of the spaceship Godspeed behind. They're ready to start life afresh--to build a home--on Centauri-Earth, the planet that Amy has traveled 25 trillion miles across the universe to experience.

But this new Earth isn't the paradise Amy had been hoping for. There are giant pterodactyl-like birds, purple flowers with mind-numbing toxins, and mysterious, unexplained ruins that hold more secrets than their stone walls first let on. The biggest secret of all? Godspeed's former passengers aren't alone on this planet. And if they're going to stay, they'll have to fight.

Amy and Elder must race to discover who--or what--else is out there if they are to have any hope of saving their struggling colony and building a future together. They will have to look inward to the very core of what makes them human on this, their most harrowing journey yet. Because if the colony collapses? Then everything they have sacrificed--friends, family, life on Earth--will have been for nothing.

FUELED BY LIES.
RULED BY CHAOS.
ALMOST HOME.

My take: Beth Revis has one crazy imagination! It is completely ludicrous that she was able to accomplish such a jaw dropping resolution to this trilogy, and I’m outright mystified how she did it. If you thought the first two books were insane, well . . . you are in for a shocker with this one because she surpassed the first two by a long shot in my opinion! I’ll tell you what; Beth Revis has no shame in killing off people I had not at all expected would be done away with. I mean, you can usually guess who will be the next one to die in a movie…but not in this book. And then every jaw dropping scene took me several moments to process because each one was so unbelievably insane! Can you tell that I loved this book?

There are a lot of characters introduced in this book, but I was always kind of leery with getting too attached to them. And that’s because Beth Revis did a great job of making me cautious to see if they deserved my trust or if they even deserved to be liked. I’ll have to admit that I wasn’t quite as paranoid as Elder was, but at the same time, I’m wondering if it would have been better for my sanity to have been just a little more paranoid myself. Elder did get on my nerves several times, but I still like his character and I personally liked Amy’s character a whole lot better after this book.

I was completely sucked into this story from the very first page; in fact, I’m pretty sure Shades of Earth didn’t leave my fingers until I turned the last page. But it was the last half of the book that had me freaking out! There was one crazy twist after another and there simply was no way for me to guess how this story would end; so much so that when the book was nearing the end, I was actually a little nervous that Beth wouldn’t be able to accomplish a proper ending. But she tied everything up nicely and ended the story flawlessly.

I am for sure a Beth Revis fan, and I’ll be keeping a close eye out for any upcoming new books written by her.