I have always been a fan of dystopian reads, my favorites being Station Eleven for adults and Life as We Knew It for YA.  With the release of The Final Six, I now have another to add to the list.

Reading this book felt like The Hunger Games meets Divergent in space.   I am not a big sci-fi fan, yet I was yearning to return to the story to see what would happen next.  So please don’t discount this book even if it’s outside your favorite genre.

With so much of life on Earth gone because of natural disasters, NASA decides to enlist 24 teenagers to train and compete to make up a final 6 to fly to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, and set up a civilization in hopes to perpetuate life there.  The teens are chosen in a ceremony after being carefully vetted based on what skills they can bring to the necessary mission.  Two standouts are Naomi from the United States, a tech and science expert, and Leo from Italy, stupendous in his underwater skills.

The narration switches off between Leo and Naomi.  Along the way they have to watch out for others trying to sabotage them and coming to grips that they might leave Earth and their families forever.

I loved the training and simulations for their mission.  And I was pleasantly surprised at some of the twists throughout the way.  Given that this genre can be saturated, I enjoyed space as a new concept.  Fans of movies like Gravity and Apollo 13 will find a lot to like in this story.  I’m eager to discover what’s next for these teens in the next book, which is hopefully coming soon!  So thrilled, also, that this has already been optioned for film, because it will be great to see this adventure come to life.

My thanks to the publisher and MB Communications for the review copy.

About the author:

Author and recording artist Alexandra Monir broke onto the scene in her early twenties with the release of her popular debut YA novel, the paranormal romance TIMELESS (Delacorte Press/Random House). The book caught on quickly, landing on the Barnes & Noble Bestsellers chart and being named one of Amazon’s “Best Books of the Month.” The sequel, TIMEKEEPER, was published in 2013. Both books in the series have been featured in a variety of media, from USA Today to teen magazines and websites such as J-14, JustJaredJr, Teen.com and Justine Magazine. SUSPICION (Random House; December 9, 2014) marks Alexandra’s first novel outside of the TIMELESS series, as well as her first foray into the mystery genre. Her fourth YA novel for Random House will be published in April 2016.

Alexandra is also a singer/songwriter, known for integrating music into her books’ pages. She wrote and recorded three original songs to accompany the TIMELESS books, released as the album “The Timeless EP” and distributed by Jimmy Buffett’s record label, Mailboat Records. She additionally recorded a new song to be released along with SUSPICION, and is composing a stage musical geared toward Broadway. Alexandra is the granddaughter of the late Monir Vakili, the foremost Persian opera singer.

Alexandra currently resides in Los Angeles, California. She has been invited to speak at middle schools and high schools across the country, and at major events including Comic-Con, Bouchercon, the Iranian-American Women’s Leadership Conference, and New York Public Library’s annual Teen Author Festival, among others.

Thanks to MB Communications, I have a copy to give away to a lucky reader.  U.S. only, please.  Enter on the Rafflecopter.
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