Quick Thoughts: Quicksilver - Ani's Book Abyss

Quicksilver -- R.J. Anderson

Book 2 (final) of Ultraviolet duology

This book was good. Very good. I never had any doubts it would be. Even if I still liked Ultraviolet better.

Quicksilver was every bit as amazing as I had expected it to be based on how much I loved its predecessor, Ultraviolet. This second book picks up right after the events of Ultraviolet with a few flashbacks and seamless backstory interlaced through Tori’s voice. While a little bit more exciting and intense than the previous book, Quicksilver has just the same amount of emotional FEELS that hit you where it hurts the most--a good kind of FEELS and a different kind from Ultraviolet.

And while I always try to give books their own merit, with books in series, it’s hard NOT to do some comparisons. And it’s not that I DID make a lot of comparisons between the duo, but I subconsciously admitted to myself that I maybe, personally, liked Ultraviolet more than I liked Quicksilver.

But that point is moot when, in the end, both books are simply amazing by their own rights.

The Official Story Blurb:

Back home Tori was the girl who had everything a sixteen-year-old could want—popularity, money, beauty. Everything. Including a secret. That secret made her very valuable.

Now she's left everything from her old life behind, including her real name and Alison, the only person who truly understood her. She can't lose the secret. But if she wants to have anything resembling a normal life, she has to blend in and hide her unique…talents.

Plans change when the enigmatic Sebastian Faraday reappears in Tori's life and delivers bad news: she hasn't escaped. In fact, she's attracted new interest in the form of an obsessed ex-detective now in the employ of a genetics lab.

She has only one shot at ditching her past for good and living like the normal human she wishes she could be. Tori must use every ounce of her considerable hacking and engineering skills—and even then, she might need to sacrifice more than she could possibly imagine if she wants to be free.

My Thoughts:
Aside from what I already mentioned, I’m not really sure what else to say. Sometimes there are books that are just good and that you just enjoyed and that you just loved a whole lot. And it’s as simple as that. So I apologize now for the extremely vague “Everything was awesome” slightly flat spiel following this paragraph. I’m just not sure how to express what I liked about this book other than the fact that I really liked it a lot.

Anyway...

I had been wary of reading via Tori’s perspective at first, since I hadn’t quite related with her from the first book. But you readily warm up to Tori, even with her slight penchant for the drama; then again, given her situation--running from an obsessed ex-detective and a genetics lab, hiding from the alien scientists who are still adamant about studying her like an animal--I guess a little bit of drama is merited.

But what I really loved about Quicksilver were the characters and even the extremely non-standard YA heroine presented to us by R.J. Anderson. Tori is definitely not the typical girl-next-door type even if that’s the personality she had presented with in Ultraviolet. And the more you learn about her, the more fascinated you become with the type of character she’s been created as. I don’t want to reveal too much, though there are enough reviews out there that already mention all her little secrets.

I loved how everything in this book isn’t what it seems and while some of the reveals aren’t so surprising, at least they weren’t too straight out predictable.

As with the first book, the writing is wonderful with descriptive images and attention to detail; the narrative descriptions were different from the way Ultraviolet had been told, which makes sense since Tori isn’t Alison and Alison’s POV was extremely unique due to her synesthesia. The engineering terms and jargon didn’t seem too difficult to process, nor did the author treat us like we weren’t smart enough to discern terms through context. There might have been some moments that dragged a little bit, but in the long run, the progression was smooth, the conflict was executed well, and everything tied together with more twists than even the first book had had.

On a side note, I have my issues with Faraday--he’s a lot less likable than he had been previously and I don’t know if it’s him or if it’s him through Tori’s POV that bugs me. I liked the introduction and presence of Milo Kim (yay! for diversity) and the friendship/relationship between Milo and Tori. The few scenes depicting Tori's new friendship with Alison were great. Tori's relationship with her parents had been depicted with lots of conflicting FEELS, both good and bad. And that was pretty much it with the characters of Quicksilver because the focus isn't too broad.

All-in-all, this sequel wraps up the Ultraviolet duology excellently!