The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore

Release Date: Out now!

Publisher: Penguin Australia

Pages: 384pgs

The Story

Until the day I met John Smith, Number Four, I'd been on the run alone, hiding and fighting to stay alive.

Together, we are much more powerful. But it could only last so long before we had to separate to find the others . . .

I went to Spain to find Seven, and I found even more, including a tenth member of the Garde who escaped from Lorien alive. Ella is younger than the rest of us, but just as brave. Now we're looking for the others - including John.

But so are they.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.

Number Two in England.

And Number Three in Kenya.

They caught me in New York - but I escaped.

I am Number Six.

They want to finish what they started.

But they'll have to fight us first.

The Review

A big thanks to the publisher on netGalley for accepting my request in reading this book early!

It's action-packed, it's addictive, it's fun and it's explosive! And in case you were wondering about what I'm talking about . . . YES I'm clearly talking about Pittacus Lore's third installment of the Lorien Legacies series, THE RISE OF NINE, and Number Four and his numbered little gang are back better than ever before!

This time round the book's events are narrated back-and-forth between several of the characters - Four, Six and Seven's perspectives. Now from the previous installment Four (John) is still with number Nine who are continually making small - and sometimes MAJOR - discoveries about their chests, their powered legacies and many other important things about themselves as well. Whereas on the other side of the globe, Six and Seven (Marina) are now in the company of Ten (Ella) and Clayton who end up finding someone else like them . . . number Eight that is. But as both groups fight to stay alive and try to find each other there are many shocking twists coming their way and ones they didn't see coming which was a real treat for, even if this book wasn't my favourite in the series so far.

With a sad and lacking of no reappearance from Sam (I know how could they do that to me!), I still loved getting back into the Lorien Legacies world and no longer missing out on these wide variety of characters that I love so, so much from the other two books. So while John (Four) and his fiery sidekick Nine didn't interest me whatsoever in this book (mostly this was due to nothing much really happening between them), but I absolutely LOVED the perspectives exchanged between Six and Seven. Now I liked Six in the first book but I found her too annoying for her own good in the sequel because she was becoming a love interest for Four rather than that strange, kick-ass girl friend that I just loved having around. But not to worry dear readers Six is back and totally badass than ever before. She rocked in this book! But it wasn't Six that did it for me this time . . . it was Seven all the way and the newly introduced character Eight who made me smile every single time he came onto the page. Those two were just so adorable alone and together as well! Eight in particular was a total hottie and whom I wanted all to myself. He was SO cute, sweet, resourceful and was totally perfect for our sweet Seven, and it was really cute seeing her boy-crushing over him. It was so nice to see her grow. But Eight . . . *melts* I blab too much, right? Okay I'll stop here.

Overall, I don't want to spoil too many things that happened in the book but I'm really excited to see what will happen next in this series and how far the author is willing to go in wrapping things up in this explosive YA series! With plenty of action, drama, teen angst and film-like sequences running through everyone of the pages and into my mind, I have to say while this book wasn't my favourite compared to the sequel but THE RISE OF NINE was definitely a worthy follow-up for fans of this series and I'm glad everything from the characters to the unique elements of sci-fi keeps getting better and better! It's such a sweet little delight to say the least!

The Rating

4/5 stars