Review: Day 21

Day 21 by Kass Morgan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

No one has set foot on Earth in centuries — until now.

It’s been 21 days since the hundred landed on Earth. They’re the only humans to set foot on the planet in centuries…or so they thought. Facing an unknown enemy, Wells attempts to keep the group together. Clarke strikes out for Mount Weather, in search of other Colonists, while Bellamy is determined to rescue his sister, no matter the cost. And back on the ship, Glass faces an unthinkable choice between the love of her life and life itself.

At the end of The 100, Olivia had been kidnapped by some unknown group of Earthborns, the camp had been attacked and Asher killed, and Bellamy and Clarke had left to go looking for her. Day 21 begins in the aftermath, with Wells trying to calm down his fellow Hundred while Graham is trying to instigate war on them. When an Earthborn is captured, the rift between Wells and Bellamy, who had mostly a friendship in the 100, starts to erupt. Meanwhile, on the Colony itself, Phoenix quarantines itself from other classes and this threatens the peace there. Glass chooses to go to Luke but her heart is still heavy with the guilt of condemning his best friend to death. In fact, guilt is a common factor among the leads – Clarke over Lilly, Glass over Carter, Wells over what he did to the Colony and Bellamy for Octavia.

For book that promises to be a ‘pulse-pounding sequel’, it did not make my heart race. The drama between Bellamy and Clarke and Clarke and Wells is getting old. Wells getting a new love interest was maybe the only respite. Glass and Luke are back together and we also get to see the vapid Glass from before. There were a few overused tropes in the story though – the I-tell-you-the-truth-and-you-get-upset, the ex-girlfriend-knows-your-secret, and honestly it had more potential than that. I expected it to be akin to Shades of Earth since both dealt with recolonization of a planet, but Day 21 was more focused on teen drama than letting us vicariously enjoy the thrill of exploring a new land. The danger is quite dampened by the romance, and though I loved the couples it does get a bit boring. The exciting parts again came towards the end of the book, and I was surprised out of a hundred convicts, only one was actually capable of killing. It was certainly a surprise who it turned out to be, but too little too late.

The other band of survivors, the Earthborn, also don’t show up much which makes me wonder why they even bothered with the warning killing. The climax was pretty anti-climactic, right until the last moment. It left me wanting for something more exciting because this wasn’t what I expected out of this book. It was a tad bit better than the previous but a letdown, simply.

Received an ARC from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers via Netgalley. This in no way affects my opinion or the review.

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