ENCLAVE by Ann Aguirre

New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20's. 

When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters - or Freaks - who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings. 

And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight - guided by Fade's long-ago memories - in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs.

I read this book a few years back and really enjoyed it. I remembered the gist of the story and vaguely remembered what happened, but I decided that in order to read the third installment of this trilogy, I would re-read the first two, which started with Enclave.

Now I'll try not to spoil anything, but I will be reading the entire series which in its essence will be spoilers regardless sooo yes.

Now there are a good many aspects of this novel that I really loved. The first being the society of the Enclave. They live underground in the sewer systems and subway tunnels and never go above ground with the belief that the world above is too radiated and inhabitable. They have certain rules and certain roles for each person within the community that makes the system work to their advantage. There are Breeders (good looking, built, good quality people) to obviously...make babies for the Enclave to survive, the Builders who take care of construction and reinforcements of their environment, and then the Hunters, who go out into the tunnels and bring back the food that they all eat.

The relative age of each member only goes so high, usually peaking at about 25, in which case their elders aren't old at all.

Now there's also the aspect of the Freaks, who are mutated human-like beasts with razor-sharp claws, pointed teeth, and come with a very specific smell so you know when they are around, near, or coming for you. They are animals, who only exist to feed and survive. They will eat people, animals, and their own dead if they can because all they are is hungry. These Freaks live in the tunnel systems with them and attack them when they can, and the Hunters must battle them anytime they go to get more food for their people.

I personally really like Deuce because she's bold. She has a lot of brainwashing going on, so I'm excited for all of that to disappear in the next two books, but obviously, for her life and the culture she grew up in, she is strong, calculative, and proud. She loves being a huntress, and she loves her life. I like when she doesn't care to beat around the bush and just state the truth and ask questions as she sees fit.

I also love the dynamics of the group of people they encounter on the surface. They call themselves wolves and literally take to the terms of a pack. There are alphas, and cubs and whatnot and it was interesting that that was something incorporated into the story as well as the idea that a wolf pack dynamic would be adopted in the "end of days" scenario.

Buuuttt lets talk about a few pitfalls of this story.

First being....the insta-love. It's not so instalovey that at first when Deuce sees Fade she's like OH MAN and bam they are totally into each other. At first, she is generally scared and put off by him, but it doesn't take long at all for her to be like, oh, well, hey about that, and suddenly see him as something to love. Same goes for Fade who was so intriguing at first, but there came a moment where I was like damn Fade, you aren't as cool and mysterious as I thought, and that made me pretty sad.

Another downfall would be the actual telling of this story. Like.....it builds and builds and goes along and you get into it and it's exciting and yay and then BAM. It's done....like...where was the super crazy life changing climax??? Did I just read it and not notice because it wasn't that awesome like...at all???

Yeah. It wasn't that awesome at all, and it literally does just end. It's like this book and the next should probably just have been one book because it didn't feel finished or complete, there was no completion of characters arc or plotline or story and you don't get the feels. It completes a segment of time and space but doesn't complete a narrative and that was pretty depressing.

I gave it a 3/5! It was good, I enjoyed it but I was left less than enthusiastic. Soooooo I'm going to continue with the series because obviously, it's still good enough to find out what happens!!