HELL'S BELLS EVANGELINA.

So firstly I was borderline bloodlust violently pissed off at Eva for parts of this book. And Devlin. And David. Look I was a David fangirl (for the most part) in the first book, PODs. Devlin was...well. He was Devlin. Eva wasn't terribly interested in him, so there wasn't much TO him as a result (other then some interesting banter). Honestly I'd be more drawn towards Devlin then David if this was real life, but David was there for Eva. They were there for each other. And while their relationship was perhaps not terribly...healthy in the real world, in the POD world they hella more functional (and sane).

Some of that unhealthy attachment carried over into this book and a whole lot of confusing pronoun games were played. I honestly had no idea what was going on with David and Eva's relationship, or Eva and Devlin's, or David and Devlin's or the three together. Devlin kept mentioning "I hate this being a secret" but they were anything BUT secretive. Eva kept noticing David's scowl looks, but I'm pretty sure they had that conversation where he was like "is there someone new?" and got irritated THEN. His continued possessiveness (when he was the one who said "this is it for us") nearly had me punching him.

Not that Eva was blameless - their continued issue of communication reared its evil head as well. Also obtuseness was everyone's issue (David when Devlin was talking to him, Devlin when Eva was talking to him, Eva when David or Devlin or ANYONE was talking to her about Important Emotional Stuff).

I liked that the pace was fast in this book. There wasn't any down time - that was largely glossed over, for which I was happy to allow - and Pickett kept the plot was floundering. There was some redundancy--there's 3...4? different road trips? All of which had expected complications and there was a lot of red herrings regarding characters and their outcomes. Plus, and I say this with fondness if not patience, the ending was SO PAT. I already hid this review for possible character spoilers, but let's hide this nugget behind more spoiler tags Eva gets everything she ever wanted. Her parents are alive. David and her are in love and getting married. They have a safe haven. Most of her friends made it through okay despite multiple Infected attacks. I kept waiting for the moment when Pickett would be like HAHAHAHAHA she was DREAMING IT ALL and Eva is really dead. Except I should always remember not everyone likes to punk their audience in horrific ways like that.

I'm happy that there was a happy ending for many of the folks. I'm happy that Eva and David have peace in their lives. I'm happy that Devlin is now single and I can play the Mary Sue girl and think about helping him get over Eva. In the end I was in this for the characters and their lives moreso than anything else. Yeah the book had some scientific plotholes and the ending pretty much had everyone in the PODs being like "FU" to the rest of the villages, but I didn't really care. All that mattered to me was that my girl was safe, because at the end of the day she deserved it. ( )