Meridian (Arclight#2) by Josin L. McQuein
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Genre: Dystopian and Young Adult
Release Date: May 27, 2014
Pages: 458 (Hardcover)
Marina thought that she had solved all of the Arclight’s mysteries. She had found her own history—that she was one of the Fade, that she never should have been human. She knows that the Fade who surround the Arclight don’t want to be the humans’ enemies at all. She knows that the leader of those inside the Arc, Honoria Whit, never told the whole truth. But there is so much more that Marina is just discovering. There are more survivors out there. Only Marina—and her friends, all of whom have connections to the Fade they’d never known about—can lead her people to them. But there are also darker dangers, things that even the Fade fear. And Marina slowly realizes she may never have been “cured,” after all. The sequel to Arclight, Meridian is an intense, action-packed page-turner about the lines we draw between right and wrong, light and dark . . . and the way nothing is ever that black and white.
First of all, I would like to thank the publisher, Greenwillow Books for giving me an ARC of this book to review. Thank you so much! Really appreciate it! All right, now for my review.
All I can truly say about this book, is: I really hope that there will be another book and I cannot wait for it. It seems weird that I would even enjoy this series as much as I have considering all of the clichés and annoyances it has. But I just can’t get enough of it and it’s mostly because of one of the love interests. He’s actually perfect and amazing and I love him so, so, so much. But as a whole, I was pretty disappointed with this book and I’m hoping that the next one (hopefully) is done a lot better and leaves all the predictability alone.
I think that McQuein’s biggest struggle with this series apart from how predictable it is, are the character and how lacking most of them seem to be. After I finished reading Arclight, I was expecting the characters to really stand out to me since the awkwardness of being presented a new world was just about over. Yet, they stayed the same, forgettable and not at all moving in any way. The relationship between Marina and Tobin is strained. Whenever they’re together, I felt like McQuein wanted to remind readers that Rue isn’t the only guy in Marina’s life and that she cares about Tobin also (insert extremely awkward and misplaced kissing here). Another horribly done thing in the book is the dual perspective. Some authors can do it, but most can’t and although I could distinctively tell which character’s perspective I was reading from, I didn’t like how useless his voice is. I got close to no information on him or really got inside of his head.
Beside all of that, I did like Meridian. I liked the writing, same as the first one and I love how well McQuein’s attention to detail is. She soothingly puts in a ton of description into things especially the trip to the Cube which I could easily picture in my head. Like I mentioned before, Rue plays a huge part in my rating for this book. His character excels where other do not. I was rooting for him, from cover to cover and I looked forward to his sarcastic-but-not-really manner. His complete devotion to include everyone and respects decisions yet leaves no one behind pulled at my heart and this is why he’s awesome.
Meridian is not as good as it could be but I still liked some things about it. I’m giving it a pretty high rating because of Rue and how much I enjoyed him. It’s like how some people feel about The Real Housewives it’s so dumb but you just love it despite its flaws.
Still, I recommend this book to anyone who has read the first. And if you haven’t read this series yet, but trust my judgement and the fact that I usually don’t take to any love interest, read this series! Rue is too awesome and I love him.
For quotes from this book, click here.
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