Wednesday, October 24, 2012

REVIEW: LOSING LILA ~ SARAH ALDERSON


I suggest you first read my post on book 1, Hunting Lila, before continuing.  If this is a story you might like to follow, do not read this post – it contains major spoilers of book 1.


At the conclusion of Hunting Lila, Lila has discovered that Demos is not the man who murdered her mother, and that her mother was never truly killed at all; like Lila she is a psygen – she is kept on The Unit’s base and experimented on!  Alex and Jack also discover that The Unit is not what they think, and that the psygens they have been taught to hate are not as sociopathic as they were made to believe. 

Losing Lila by Sarah Alderson picks up a shortly after Hunting Lila left off.  A few days after the Joshua Tree shooting , Lila and Alex are in Mexico, meeting up with Demos and the other psygens in order to facilitate a plan to break Jack and Melissa out of The Unit’s custody.  With Alex’ support and encouragement Lila finally embraces her ability and works on controlling it and getting stronger.  It’s time to stop running and start fighting. 

The stakes go even higher when Lila learns that The Unit also got their hands on her father.  It turns out that her father has always been aware of the fact that her mother is telepathic, and that he has been working on a cure for psygens, to remove their abilities; but with his research The Unit need only reverse the basics and they can create psygens of their own – better, stronger psygens to be sold as weapons to the highest bidder.  

Is it possible for a handful of psygens, along with Alex, to break into the hi-tech military base, get down to maximum prisoner holding, break out Lila’s family and safely get back out, when all of them are wanted and hunted by The Unit?   Can a team of five people hope to take down an entire military institution who threatens them all?

Losing Lila was every bit as exciting as Hunting Lila, and concluded quite satisfactorily; however, several questions are left unanswered.  What happened to Richard Stirling?  Is Sara alive?  Will Jack ever discover the truth of his birth?  Sarah Alderson left the back door ajar, ensuring the possibility of a future novel  - though, should this not materialise, Losing Lila answered all the major questions, so we can live with it.  Though I would LOVE another book.  Maybe set a few years later, seeing the gang reunite for a kick-ass mission?  I was disappointed to have to say farewell to Lila, Alex, Jack, Demos, Suki, Key and the others; especially Mrs Johnson – what a hoot! 

One of the things I appreciated most about these books, is that there is no love triangle.  I am sick unto death of love triangles.  It was really great to know straight of the bat that Lila loves Alex, and while suspecting the feeling is mutual, he admits it fairly early on.  It was so refreshing to just have the two of them be a couple in love all along, their love threatened only by physical threats, no third party. 

The plotline is fast and furious, and once again there are several surprising revelations that make the outcome impossible to predict. 

I had a hard time putting these books down, and whenever you are literally sad to finish a book, the author did a fantastic job.  Sarah Alderson most definitely did.   Great, gripping read.



Product information:
Title: Losing Lila
Author: Sarah Alderson
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2012
ISBN-10: 0857071971
ISBN-13: 978-0857071972 

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