Into the Still Blue by Veronica Rossi

Caution, this may contain spoilers for this book and any others in the series.

Aaaaaaaah! The long awaited conclusion to Veronica Rossi's epic series, the previous two being Under the Never Sky and Through the Ever Night.

What I Liked LOVED:

1. Veronica freaking Rossi. I've said it before and I'll say it again: no author writing YA fiction today has as engaging a style as Veronica Rossi. I'm not even going to qualify that, it is hands down true. Every word she writes captures my imagination and makes me truly see what she is writing, and I cannot get enough. 
2. Aria and Perry. Ah, they were so good in this! I've loved them as a couple since the beginning, and I was happy to read their relationship throughout this book. I mean, of course, I LOVE dual-perspective novels, always have, so when you get that, then with a couple, then with Perry and Aria, it's awesome. They're the perfect relationship: they're sweet and cute (Night Crawler!), they're touching and romantic (when Loran lets Aria see Perry after Sable has had him with the mallet), and they're epic and tragic and heartfelt and one for the ages (when Perry boards the Dragonwing with Cinder), you know? I just cannot praise their relationship enough, it feels so real and true. 
3. Loran! I have been wondering since the beginning if this Chekhov's gun (or Chekhov's father, as it were) was going to appear, and, lo and behold, Veronica Rossi has done it again, AWESOME! It wasn't sappy or contrived at all, everything just worked. 
4. Deaths! I don't want to spoil you, but Veronica Rossi has done what few other YA authors dare to do: kill characters. Good characters, bad characters (morally, I mean, Veronica Rossi has never produced a badly written character), and some in between, not to mention the nameless extras that didn't make it. I found that she really, really made me believe the deaths, and the characters' (mostly Perry's) reactions to them. It really made my experience of this novel to know that death was so strikingly on the table. 
5. Aria. I feel like her character arc really, really made this novel for me. I have always really admired Aria as fictional character, and also really loved her as a person, and I feel like in Into the Still Blue, she really came into her own. It's hard to describe, but I feel like the new world is going to be built by a new Aria, compared to the Aria we met in Under the Never Sky. 
6. Soren. It's always nice to see a character develop into a human being instead of a fairly flat secondary antagonist. As much as I disliked him in the first book, Veronica Rossi really made me feel for him in this installment. Props. 

What I Didn't Like: 

1. Write more books, Veronica Rossi! We need more! Don't leave us devoid of your engaging characters, epic stories, and general awesomeness!

Final Thoughts:

• Epic. It was epic. The Under the Never Sky trilogy by Veronica Rossi is epic. Truly, as someone who has read epics, I mean that in every sense of the word. As an English major, as a YA lit fan, as a teenage/twenty-something girl, as a human being, this is epic. 
• I read Under the Never Sky when it first came out; I was in high school, and I remember raving about it to my friends in the locker room before gym class. I am so happy to have had the experience to read these books as they were released. 
• Just get this book. Get it and read it and love it, because it awesome and epic and you will love it. (That is the least contrived thing I've ever said)

Through the Ever Night by Veronica Rossi

*This review contains spoilers.*

This book is, of course, the sequel to Under the Never Sky which I read and adored last year! And now there's a sequel! And there's going to be a third one, called Into the Still Blue! YAY!

Since you've already read the first one, there's no need to tell you that this is amazing, but I'd like to mention a few things anyway, in case anyone has forgotten the utter genius of Veronica Rossi.

First off, this is one of those books where I can be reading it and think that no time at all has gone by, and then look at the clock and see it has been an hour and I've read a hundred pages. It's so immersive and seamless that I see the entire thing like a movie in my mind, completely unconscious of that. Veronica Rossi's prose is just inspired, literally...she's so good about everything - the setting is seared into your brain, but you never feel overloaded on description, you feel the characters' feelings, but you aren't bogged down with endless inner monologues...it's lush and sparse at the same time. It's like she's writing on pure talent and instinct or something...I can't even tell you why I'm so enamored with Ms. Rossi's style, but it's just fabulous, as always.

I also have to say, I enjoyed seeing characters I'd never thought would come back. I loved Marron, and it was nice to see him fitting in with the Tides and helping Perry. Also, Soren! I LOVED what she did with him.  Making his dad betray him, and then have him develop a rapport with Talon (the big softie! :) ) was so sweet and unique and I loved it.

Also, I adored the development of Cinder and Willow being a cute little thing. It was so cute how, after the storm, he was worried about her knowing what he was and seeing him like that, it just broke my heart. And Roar. Poor Roar. I'm indifferent on Liv, she was kind of a flash in the pan for me, but I was heartbroken for poor Roar, who I really liked a lot.

I was also totally enamored with the development of Aria and Perry's relationship. I liked the vulnerability Perry had as a Blood Lord, trying to save his people, feeling like Aria left him because he failed her. It was sweet and the trust issues that they had were very deftly handled. I fell in love with them as a couple even more in this novel than I did in the first. It was the kind of fictional coupling that makes your heart pound and your blood race, you know? I really, really cared for and felt for and loved Perry and Aria.

In short, this was an excellent read, and I continue to absolutely worship the literary talents of Veronica Rossi. I couldn't recommend this book more highly.

Thanks for reading!

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Oh my God! This book was so amazing I can barely make my thoughts coherent enough to form a post! It takes place in a dystopian future where the environment has gotten so bad (plagued by Aether storms etc.) that people have resorted to living in Pods and experiencing things virtually (in the Realms). However, unlike the Dwellers, some people lived outside these things - they're known as the Outsiders or Savages and are a primitive, tribal people. Some of them have been Marked by the Aether with special abilities. Unfortunately for Aria, a terrible situation leads to her being exiled from her Pod, where she meets Perry, a "Savage." At first, they both just use each other to try to get back something of theirs, but, you know what they say about opposites.

My Thoughts:

1. I picked this book up on a whim from the Teens' New Releases section on Barnes and Noble's website. It came at 6 PM from UPS yesterday, and I've just finished (8:45 PM Thursday). This book was just so riveting and gripping. It's like the entire thing could have been italicized it was such an invigorating rush of a read. 
2. This book was perfect. Absolutely perfect! I can barely go into what I liked about it because everything was just a seamless whole. It was an experience! An enigma! Oh my God! Go read this book! Stop reading this review and go and read this book!
3. Aria was a great heroine. She was tough, but relatable and she opened up to Perry/was sweet to him in a decent amount of time. (As you know, I love the hate turns to love type romance, but if they're awful to each other for too long, I tend to not go for that.)
4. Perry. Oh, wow. Just wow. He was perfect. Handsome in a rugged sort of way, brooding, protective, caring, sweet, strong, sensitive - oh, he was just wonderful! There was a line of his that was just so lovable I might have wept a bit from happiness. *squee!*
5. The romance was beautiful. It was sensuous and sweet and passionate and heart-wrenching. This relationship was so beautifully rendered I can honestly say I had moments of doubt about my intended future of solitude and cat lady-dom. The build-up was great, but the crowning moments were even better. It was magnificent. 
6. The world. Oh, my God! It was perfect. You don't know everything and it's tantalizing yet not annoyingly out of reach. It's rich and fully realized in a way that the young adult genre rarely sees. 
7. The plot was also very captivating. So much is left to discover, but the journey they've already taken was very fulfilling. It's like a classic, fairy tale quest but re-imagined so fully as to warrant its own genre. 
8. It was just so almost luscious in tone. I can't place it, but my heart was in my throat the entire time. It just felt luxuriant in it's emotion. It was genuine and engaging and just something I've never really experienced before (and I read A LOT).
9. It has it. That undefined, undefinable essence that I peruse shelf after shelf searching for. I finally understand why the Romantics appreciated the unclassifiable. 

Who Should Read It:

• Literate people of the world: you NEED to read this book. If you have an ounce of emotion in your body, you will appreciate this book. 

Final Score: There is no numerical value I can give this book that will do it justice. This is a masterpiece. This will be the classic of our generation. (Apart from Harry Potter, of course, which is a given.) I'm not sure if people who read the literary canon as new releases knew what they held in their hands, but I know that Under the Never Sky is something special. 

For more info, check out the author's website here. I have tons of new books, but I'm thinking either Overbite by Meg Cabot or Entice by Carrie Jones will be next.