Being the shallow sort, once more I was led into this one by the scrummy cover – I do love a gorgeous purple cover – and the fact it was a YA science fiction adventure…
Trapped on the ice-planet of Delon, gamer girl Sofi and Ambassador Miguel have discovered that 
nothing is what it seems, including their friends. On a quest to rescue her brother, Shilo, a boy everyone believes is dead, they must now escape and warn Earth of Delon’s designs on humanity. Except the more they unearth of the planet and Sofi’s past, the more they feel themselves unraveling, as each new revelation has Sofi questioning the very existence of reality. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Sofi’s mom, Inola, is battling a different kind of unraveling: a political one that could cost lives, positions, and a barely-rebuilt society, should they discover the deal made with the Delonese. But there’s a secret deeper than all that. One locked away inside Sofi and ticking away with the beginnings, endings, and answers to everything. Including how to save humanity.
Of course, the snag with being swept away by a gorgeous cover is that I tend to crash midway into a series. Sometimes I get away with it and other times, because the action seamlessly continues from one book to the other, I flounder. This second book in the series falls into the latter category and it took me a while to work out who was doing what to whom. Once I sorted that out, however, I became invested in the characters and caught up in the very difficult situation facing humanity.
Sofi and Miguel are appealing protagonists and while romance isn’t generally my go-to genre, Weber writes this relationship with lyricism and conviction that swept me along. The Delonese aliens are suitably imperturbable and smugly superior with their intimidating technical superiority and the character I most empathised with was poor Inola, who is trying to hold this political situation together. The action was gripping throughout and there were a couple of deaths that winded me with their unexpectedness, while keeping me on my toes.
Any quibbles? While the climactic action scene was engrossing and convincing, the aftermath did seem to wrap things up just a tad too tidily. But this is really a very minor issue, and certainly didn’t stop me from thoroughly enjoying this one – though my firm advice would be to go and track down the first book in this duology, The Evaporation of Sofi Snow, before tucking into this one. While I obtained an arc of Reclaiming Shilo Snow from Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10
Brainfluff 