This is the second book in a series. There will be no spoilers for this book, but there may be spoilers for the first one. Be warned!
If you want to read my review of the first book in the series, click on the title below.
Bloom
Hatch by Kenneth Oppel
Publication Date: September 15, 2020
Summary from NetGalley:
Fans left desperate for more at the end of Bloom will dive into this second book of the Overthrow trilogy–where the danger mounts and alien creatures begin to hatch.
Seth, Anaya, and Petra are strangely immune to the plants’ toxins and found a way to combat them. But just as they have their first success, the rain begins again. This rain brings eggs. That hatch into insects. Not small insects. Bird-sized mosquitos that carry disease. Borer worms that can eat through the foundation of a house. Boat-sized water striders that carry away their prey.
First the rain brought seeds. Seeds that grew into alien plants that burrowed and strangled and fed.
But our heroes aren’t able to help this time–they’ve been locked away in a government lab with other kids who are also immune. What is their secret? Could they be…part alien themselves? Whose side are they on?
Kenneth Oppel expertly escalates the threats and ratchets up the tension in this can’t-read-it-fast-enough adventure with an alien twist. Readers will be gasping for the next book as soon as they turn the last page…
ARC provided by Random House Children’s via NetGalley for an honest review.
Confession:
This second installment in this thrilling trilogy was just as terrifying as the first. Maybe even more so as we learn more about the cryptogens and their plans for earth. The book does start out a little slow, but the action picks up pretty quickly as the kids fight for not just their survival but humanity as well.
The story is still told through Seth, Anaya and Petra’s points of view. Each of them is struggling throughout with the changes that are happening to them and coming to grips with the fact that they are not fully human any more. But they do learn to accept their new abilities for the most part. There are some tense moments between the friends, and some new friends they make in the lab come between them at times. But they eventually do come to terms with their issues and are united in helping everyone survive.
Although the parts of the book that took place in the lab, were the slowest parts of the book, they were still the most interesting. We got to meet new kids in the same predicament as our main characters and see how well they were adjusting or not. The kids learn and develop new talents and abilities too, that the adults just want to exploit. The scientists behind the lab, especially Dr Ritter, were not very nice to the kids. The experiments they wanted to perform on them were heinous and downright cruel. So I was really rooting for the kids to work together to get away from them.
We do learn at the start that the new rain that started falling at the end of book one contains creatures that grow at an amazing pace. One of the downfalls of the part of the book that takes place in the lab is that we don’t know what is happening on the outside with these creatures, until they start appearing that is. These things bring the terror the plants started to a whole new level.
This book was just as exciting and wonderful as the first, but that ending just about killed me. I was sort of expecting it, but still it is quite the cliff hanger, which just makes me want the next book now. This is definitely a book I recommend for those older tween and young teens who like fast paced action and a thrilling plot.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 