Author: K.A. Riley
Reign is the final book in the Cure series. I wrote about previous parts on my blog, see book 1, book 2, part 3, and part 4. Reign is perhaps the most dynamic book in the series, and it was a good way to end it. After escaping from Behemoth in New York, Ashen goes back to Colorado with the help of her childhood friend Rys and tries to find Finn to convince him that he is living with a Replik and not the real her. Bishop has taken over the ruling of her home Arc with deceit and by convincing everyone that Ashen’s Replik has escaped and will try to convince everyone that she is the real Ashen. Ashen now must fight to convince everyone she is the real Ashen and the book concentrates on that part, along with fighting Bishop’s rule of the Arc…
There is less focus on power and soppiness in Reign, so the book reads better. I was particularly interested in Replik’s behaviour and the ways she evolved and got different from Ashen, which could have been explored more. Also, the book goes into great detail about Ashen trying to prove herself, but then the whole mess gets resolved too suddenly. Equally, the epic battle with the Duchess that happens towards the end of the book is too short and not explored enough. I am going back to my criticism of book three and saying that had it not been for that book, the whole story would have read better.
I am glad I read this book series because there were some interesting ideas here, particularly the biological warfare and Arcology, the poor vs the rich divide, and the notion of societal disintegration. Societal disintegration was explored very nicely in book one and book two, where we learnt about arcologies in book one and the Bastille community in book three, then also the Consortium. This societal disintegration was the main part I enjoyed about the book series The Cure, as well as the focus on high technology and how technology can be used to rule and oppress, which many of us do not always see even though our own society is moving in that direction. I suppose the author had to go sci-fi with the special powers Finn develops for Ashen because she could not fight the powerful without powers, but I would have preferred a story of uprising or rebuilding broken societies after disintegration, similar to what Station 11 did when portraying the life after societal disintegration.
Thank you for reading!