Book Review: The Towering Sky

Author: Katharine McGee

Genre: YA Sci-fi

Release Date: 08.28.18

Publisher: HarperCollins

Source: Personal Purchase

My Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Synopsis: “Welcome back to New York, 2119. A skyscraper city, fueled by impossible dreams, where the lives of five teenagers have become intertwined in ways that no one could have imagined.

Leda just wants to move on from what happened in Dubai. Until a new investigation forces her to seek help—from the person she’s spent all year trying to forget.

Rylin is back in her old life, reunited with an old flame. But when she starts seeing Cord again, she finds herself torn: between two worlds, and two very different boys.

Calliope feels trapped, playing a long con that costs more than she bargained for. What happens when all her lies catch up with her?

Watt is still desperately in love with Leda. He’ll do anything to win her back—even dig up secrets that are better left buried.

And now that Avery is home from England—with a new boyfriend, Max—her life seems more picture-perfect than ever. So why does she feel like she would rather be anything but perfect?

In this breathtaking finale to The Thousandth Floor trilogy, Katharine McGee returns to her vision of 22nd-century New York: a world of startling glamour, dazzling technology, and unthinkable secrets. After all, when you have everything… you have everything to lose.”

Note: This review will not contain spoilers for The Towering Sky, HOWEVER it contains spoilers for the previous two books in the series: The Thousandth Floor and The Dazzling Sky. If you haven’t read the first two books in the series be warned that this review will contain major spoilers for the first two books! If you haven’t read the first two books in the series yet don’t ruin the fun and stop reading now.

The Towering Sky is wild ride of drama that concludes the The Thousand Floor trilogy in a mess of emotion. After the events of the Dubai party the characters attempt to move on from the trauma of the past two books, only to find themselves suspects in a new mystery that begins to unravel and reopen old wounds in the process… Which, honestly, makes this book my favorite of the entire trilogy. I’m blown away by how much this story has developed throughout the course of the books and The Towering Sky is easily the best. The writing, characters, relationships, and overall structure were at their best in this conclusion! I was fully invested emotionally, and despite its intimidating size, it was a quick read that was hard to put down.

Y’all, the relationships made my heart melt. The romantic chemistry was some of McGee’s finest work and I STILL cannot get over my love for these couples. In particular Leda & Watt and Rylin & Cord blew me away, they’ve been my favorite couples since book two… but there was something about their development during The Towering Sky that really just pulled at my heart strings. It was adorable and awkward at times and just perfectly cute for the characters involved.

The character development in this book was unreal. If you’ve read my past two reviews you may know I haven’t been the biggest fan of Calliope and Avery since starting this trilogy, yet they actually became a lot more relatable and bearable in this conclusion! I wouldn’t go as far as to say I like them at this point, but I didn’t roll my eyes every time they talked which is a huge step up.

And on the topic of characters, I really wish there had been more Atlas content. I would have loved for him to have his own POV or even an extra novella. I’ve felt so distant from him this entire trilogy and getting to see into his mind, into his past, would have made the story more interesting.

So, overall, I enjoyed this story a lot more than I expected! This trilogy definitely get’s better as it goes and The Towering Sky is a wildly unpredictable finale that has been stuck in my head since finishing. If you haven’t read the trilogy (in which case you probably just read a ton of spoilers to be here at the bottom) or if you’ve been torn about finishing it, I would highly recommend you give these books a try. They’re entertaining in the best way and make for easy and fast reads with a lot of guilty pleasure drama.