Review: NIL Unlocked (NIL #2) by Lynne Matson

Book Title: NIL Unlocked

Author: Lynne Matson

Published Date: May 12th, 2015

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.

Genre: YA/Science Fiction

Series: Book 2 in NIL trilogy

Book Link: Goodreads

Pre-Order Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

On the island of Nil, the rules are set. You have exactly 365 days to escape—or you die. Rives is now the undisputed Leader of Nil City, but keeping the City united is tougher than ever.

Raiders have grown bolder, supplies are dwindling, and non-human inhabitants have taken a turn toward the deadly. New arrivals cause rifts within the City, putting the Search system at risk, and calling everything Rives knows into question. Desperate for answers, he teams up with the only other person searching for them: Skye, a new arrival with a mysterious past of her own. Soon the duo find themselves locked in a desperate race to save all the residents of Nil—and possibly destroy the island forever. But at what cost? And who will pay the price?

Disclaimer: I won this book in a giveaway.

Review:

Holy crap, I didn't expect NIL Unlocked to be better than NIL, but it was!

I didn't mention this in my review of NIL, but my only criticism was that we didn't get any information on the history of NIL and how it came to be or any other kind of backstory on NIL. Thankfully, in NIL Unlocked, I got some answers. I got answers about NIL and how it worked. In some ways, this was my favorite part of the book.

We wouldn't have known anything about NIL if it weren't for Skye. NIL wasn't a mystery to Skye and although I'd love to say more on that front, I can't because of how spoilery it would end up being and I really want to avoid spoilers as much as I can. Skye was awesome though and as much as I loved Charley in book one, I loved Skye equally.

As fascinating as Skye was, I was very curious about Rives. I had loved him in NIL and was excited to see what was in store for him. I had loved Thad, but I think I actually loved Rives more. I'm not sure exactly why, but Rives was awesome and he was a leader and he had a whole lot of strength.

Unlike with Charley & Thad, Skye and Rives' romance didn't start until the book was nearly over and I think I liked that better. I love slow burn romances and Skye & Rives fit that to a T. Truthfully though, I do wonder if Skye's NIL knowledge was really what attracted Rives to her. Yeah maybe that's a bit cynical, but I wonder if Rives would have fallen for her if she didn't have this "insider information"

The secondary characters were once again, awesome. I loved Jillian and Dex especially and it was because of them, that the ending of this book had me pretty much sobbing into the pages. I wasn't expecting the feels to be quite as intense in the second book, but in many ways, the feels were more intense. I don't know how Lynne Matson does it.

I loved this book even more than I loved book one and I will be ordering a finished copy of this book soon. Needless to say, I'm giving it 5 stars and I cannot wait to see where the story leads in the final book.