Rate: 4/5

Medium: Kindle

Overview (No Spoilers):

As one of the last books I read in 2017, Wool held my rapt attention, duly receiving and without a doubt earning a five star rating. Needless to say, I was excited to continue the series with the second installment, Shift that follows several different wide spanning timelines, whereupon new characters are introduced while simultaneously filling in the background of old familiar ones.  Howey answers so many of the lingering questions I had after finishing Wool, from who built them to who was running Silo 1.  This filling in of back story serves to set the stage for the final book in this intriguing trilogy. Additionally, we are given fascinating perspectives in Shift from the characters that are the perceived enemy in Wool, which significantly increases depth of world building and level of emotion at play, due to the gained understanding of who they are and why they make certain decisions.  This added level of sympathy for the founders in Silo 1 blurs the lines of good and evil that were so starkly drawn in book one. Overall, Shift was a unique sequel, as it uniquely filled in backstory instead of progressing the actual narrative in a traditional fashion, although this in no way deterred from my enjoyment while reading. I feel as though all of the cards are in place for a delightfully action packed, illuminating culminating novel, although your guess is as good as mine as to where Howey will take the storyline.

Additional Insight (Spoilers Abound):

• It took me longer than I should have realized that Troy was actually Donald.  I really wanted to like Donald’s character but as the story progressed I couldn’t understand the decisions he was making.  Why did he have to kill Anna or Thurman on an impulse almost? What did Anna want to tell him before he killed her?
• Are the drones like the suits in the other silos? Designed to fail before leaving their designated area? Did the drone actually see green grass and foliage? What is going on in the outside world? Are they just a science experiment?
• Will Donald and Juliette actually join teams? How will he prove he is trust worthy to her?
• Will anyone discover that he is not Thurman?
• Jimmy’s story was so heartbreaking! His poor cat!
• How long will Donald be able to keep his sister hidden?
• Who all knows that everyone in Silo 1 is going to be killed at the end of the allotted time?
• Was Mick in on switching Donald to Silo 1 and separating him from his wife? Did Mick always want to be with Helen?
• So are the other silos that went off line still around? Will Juliette find them?
• In the conversation  between Donald and Juliette she says they’ll be careful where they dig. He obviously means the information they are looking up, but she likely means where they are physically digging. So that means they are trying to connect the other tunnels?
• Why did Victor kill himself?
• I thought it was interesting that the people of Silo 1 were taking ‘shifts’. That it was still people from the original event that would be frozen until it was their next shift decades later.