So, would Skitter be as good as The Hatching? That was what I hoped for when I started to read the book and after finishing it the same day as I started it can I only say that oh yes! It's just as creepy as the previous book and just as hard to put down.

The story takes place after the first book ended (with an annoying cliffhanger gah!) and the world thinks the worst is over, the spiders are dead. The world is in ruin, but at least the danger is over, or is it? Now it seems that what happened in the first book was just the start, and now the fight for the survival of the whole human race starts all over again. And in North America the president faces a dilemma, to enact The Spanish Protocol or not...

I love the structure of the book with several POV's and short chapters. It makes the book nearly impossible to put down. Around 85% did I realize that the book would not be able to finish without some things unresolved and that I was looking forward to another cliffhanger. I suspected at the beginning of the book that this was the case and I was right.

Skitter is a great horror book, perhaps not as gruesome as the first book. However, it has some nasty parts and I recommend this book and the previous. However, you should read The Hatching before you read Skitter.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review! ( )

Note to self - Parahumans chapters 5-11

I am afraid of spiders....or anything that even looks like it might be an 8-legged creepy crawly. When I was little, I was bitten by a poisonous spider. The bite required a trip to the ER and a nice chunk of tissue removed from my leg. Needless to say, arachnids moved to the top of my Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! list.

So, for me to read and absolutely love a book series about flesh-eating spiders....the books have to be good! Skitter is the second book in The Hatching trilogy by Ezekiel Boone. In the first book, ancient spiders that have been dormant for a very long time suddenly begin decimating the world. With the ease of worldwide transportation in the modern world, the spiders soon spread to every continent. They can also lay eggs inside the bodies of living humans who spread them without knowing they are carriers.

In this second book, the original wave of spiders has died, but egg sacs are everywhere. In the United States, the military is trying to contain a possible second wave. The president is faced with some very tough decisions. Her advisors recommend using nuclear weapons as China did to destroy areas with heavy infestations of egg sacs, but others come up with other ideas, such as a weapon using sound waves to kill the spiders. With the discovery of mysterious giant egg sacs in scattered places around the world and changes in behavior of the living spiders, scientists aren't sure what is going to happen next....but they know it won't be good. The spider infestation is far from over as some thought when the first wave died off....it's changing. Can the human race fight back and survive?

This book is definitely the middle novel in a trilogy. It has some great action in it, and shows the responses to the catastrophe around the world. Plus there is some great character and plot development. But, it's definitely a bridge between the exciting first book in this series, The Hatching, to the final book, Zero Day. Skitter brings into focus the aftermath of the first wave of spiders and the decisions that were made to protect people and destroy the spiders. It's quite apparent that those efforts failed....I mean how do you effectively stop the movement of millions of flesh-eating spiders who lay millions of eggs in any hidden dark space they crawl through? There is no way to kill every spider or destroy every egg. An unwinnable scenario creates desperation....a situation that requires making horrific choices.

I enjoyed this book. It has lots of action, suspense and creepy crawly spiders! I'm definitely ready to find out what happens in the final book. Luckily, Zero Day awaits on my e-reader!

Ezekiel Boone has a new book coming out in December 2018, The Mansion, about a family who moves into a house equipped with the most intuitive and advanced computer ever designed. Bad things happen, of course. I already have the book on my wishlist. I enjoyed the first two books in The Hatching series so much that I'm definitely on-board for Boone's new book.

On to Zero Day! I can't wait to find out how this series ends! Do your worst, Boone! I'm ready! ( )

I'm probably going to make certain people very mad I say I think I like this better than WWZ. It has the same feel even if it's not as cosmopolitan and it's not written in epistolary format. But most importantly, it has the vast character support and the feel of a world gone very wrong.

Because it's SPIDERS! Waves and waves of all kinds of spiders, quick eggs, exploding people, feeding frenzy, and many many cities are lost. It's total chaos! And here's book two. The fast feeding is almost done. Now we've got the second wave of spiders and all the survivors plodding on or deciding to end it all.

And then there's the Spanish Solution. Not having a good time? Let's blow up the infrastructure and fracture the population and cross our fingers!

These poor people are not having a good day. And the best part is... It's epic! And easy read! And it's not quite as long as all those doorstopper SF dystopian catastrophe novels I used to read from the seventies and eighties, but it certainly has the *feel* down to a science.

I honestly liked this one better than the first book. It may be due to the fact I've finally grown to like the survivors and maybe it's because I've gotten to enjoy the ebb and flow of the action and events and maybe I just like where we are in the overall story. Things are bad and getting worse and now we're deep in the new religious fanaticism and we can expect the really bad consequences of that in the third book.

I can't wait. This is great horror-SF. :) Total popcorn, even.

If I was a bit cynical, I might like to point out that this could have been written for an epic disaster SF tv show, assuming it had a decent budget. :) It feels RIGHT. ( )

SPIDERS! HELL YEAH!

Even though I loathe the things in real life, I find them so entertaining to read about when done well. Skitter is done very well!

We start right where The Hatching left off, (which was with a cliffhanger), and I found it quite easy to slip right back into this world-well, what's left of it, anyway. I keep expecting some kind of weird Star Trek time anomaly or something, because I just can't believe what's happened with the United States and the planet. Ezekiel Boone does not shy away from death, or what I think would be the ultimate response to such an invasion. That surprised and delighted me.

The main characters here are still interesting while the creature feature portions are entertaining. Perhaps all the things happening are not quite realistic, but who cares? Skitter is fun for those who like their spiders fast and hungry.

These 300 pages flew by and I had a blast reading them. If you enjoy creature features, with a little bit of scientific and military action thrown in, and with character viewpoints from around the world, The Hatching and Skitter should work well for you. Skitter is a fast, fun, chittering thrill ride and I enthusiastically recommend it! Bring on the next!

*Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is it.*

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