3.5

I didn't love Passenger as much as I wanted to, but the cliffhanger ending made me want to check out the sequel. Since it's a duology, and not a longer series, I figured it wouldn't be too much time off my hands.

I liked Wayfarer much more than Passenger, but I had to purchase an audiobook in order to get through it because - once again, the long-winded writing style was threatening to defeat me. It's not bad, per say, but some passages of description and character introspection were just so unnecessarily long. I know a lot of people found it very lyrical and beautiful, and it was, but I found paragraph long introspection slightly overdone and so unnecessary. Half the time, I just wanted to shout 'Get to the point, woman!'.

Otherwise, the characters, the plot, the pacing, the settings were all great. All of them go through so much growth and development. There's a complexity to the relationships that made them feel very real. Etta and Nicolas spend most of the book apart, so instead of romance, we get a focus on friendships and familial relationships. Which I greatly preferred to the former.

The plot itself is amazingly complex and thrilling. There is so much danger and excitement and the characters don't really get a moment's rest. I think this is what redeemed the story so much to me and kept me going - even if I did have to resort to the audio book.

Overall, I'm glad I decided to give this book a chance. It was a great - if long-winded - conclusion to the duology.