Melancholy: Book Two of The Cure (Omnibus Edition)

Publication Available Now from Momentum (Pan Macmillan)

Source: Netgalley

Here in the west they know a lot about hope. They know how to ration it just as they do with food and water.
Josephine is at last free of the blood moon. But in a desperate rush to find help for a comatose Luke, she discovers the strange and dangerous world of the resistance, and it is unlike any world Josi has known.
In the west they believe in fury – they cultivate and encourage it. The unruly people of the resistance know that to survive means to fight. But can they fight the inevitable cure for sadness that rushes steadily closer?

I love this series. Melancholy has also been released in episodes and I had actually read Episode One so when I received the omnibus edition via netgalley I was so excited – skipping past the part I had already read I jumped straight back into the story and re-entered Josie and Luke’s world.

The basic idea behind The Cure series is a world in which the government have erased our anger, creating a society of drones who gently go about their business. Things have inadvertantly arisen because of this cure which I won’t go into in case you havent read book one (Fury, which incidentally was in my top 5 YA novels read in 2014}. Our main protagonists are Josie (who faced down her demons in book one) and Luke (who is very much facing down his in book two) In this instalment they have escaped the city and are with the “resistance”. But people are dying, suspicion is rife within the community and there are dark secrets hovering just beneath the surface.

Again I won’t talk too much about plot – if you are a YA Dystopia fan I highly recommend you give the Cure series a go, the story is beautifully constructed and has enough that is different about it from the crowd to make it really stand out and be noticed. It is also highly addictive reading that will keep you on the edge of your seat a lot of the time, getting you emotionally involved with the characters and making you really worry for them. The story itself is highly compelling and flows well throughout.

I’m a fan for sure. Book two being the middle book, Charlotte McConaghy has set things up beautifully for the next – I’m unsure if the intention is to make this a trilogy or if there will be more to it, certainly the world building has set up tremendous scope for an awful lot of adventure so it will work either way. Highly Recommended.

Happy Reading Folks!