Introduction

“Growing up on the ship, none of them had ever known true darkness, and this way, their dead would always have some light shining down on them.”

The 100: Day 21 is the second novel in Kass Morgan’s The 100 series. This time, the novel follows our favorite narrators Clarke, Wells, and Bellamy as they come to terms with the fact that they are not alone one earth, while Glass is still up in space dealing with the chaos of her life post-confinement.

My Thoughts

You know, I honestly thought that I’d either have to DNF this series or just give every book a low rating but Kass Morgan got me here! Oh boy, I can’t explain to you guys enough how absolutely gut wrenching this sequel is. Morgan continued with switching the narration between three of the 100 on earth and one teen up in space – and the parts about space are surprisingly what kept me going. Morgan is dealing with a lot of rough themes here, albeit very simply, when she tries to tackle concepts of the individual versus the collective through the eyes of these teenagers. I love all the characters a little more than I did while reading the last book. They really keep the story interesting because such intense things are happening (death, potential disease, murder) but they’re literally teenagers so of course they prioritize romance sometimes or mess up in their decision making skills.

If you’re a fan of the show, it shouldn’t come as a shock that we got introduced to characters that are originally from earth (referred to as Earthborn in the books rather than Grounders like in the show). The earthen characters are very different from that in the show – I prefer the books’ version because something always rubbed me the wrong way about the primitive grounders versus the advance sky people plot lines in the show – and they quickly welcomed themselves into my heart. Some new secondary characters are Sasha, an earth born girl, and Luke, Glass’ love interest in the Colony, and Kendall, this super weird girl in the camp that essentially follows Wells around everywhere.

I really enjoy this world that Morgan created. The class divide in the Colony doesn’t sit well with me – I’d assume a floating hunk of metal in space would be the one place where collectivism would triumph – but it definitely makes life in space more interesting as the story progresses.

I’m going to start mentioning favorite moments from books because there are some parts that really have me sold on the story. There’s a part where Wells and Sasha are discussing the similarities and differences of their background in space and on earth, and Sasha is essentially pointing out all the faults in Wells explanation of the Colony. Wells is just regurgitating the information he’s been taught his whole life, which is essentially colonist propaganda, and Sasha quickly points out the inconsistencies in the Colony’s origin story by asking Wells “Then why does everyone on the Colony speak English?”

I pretty much screamed “OOOOOH, BURNNNN” after reading that line.

The book ends on yet another cliffhanger, and I’m dying to know what is going to happen next!

Rating

Overall, I give the book four stars. All in all, this book picked up the pace that the first book lacked and I burned through it, desperate for more information about these characters. Looking forward to part 3!