This book is such a treat for me. I love sad prequels, so for one to be a main instalment of this series is exciting. I love seeing impending doom in slow motion. The general story of how the silo came to be is super interesting. We get pretty much the whole backstory, told by a man instrumental in its creation. However, this book is too long. There's other stories thrown in that I felt weren't necessary. 

I don't want to spoil too much considering the show will take maybe another season to reach this point (?). It starts with scenes in 2049, with a future timeline running in parallel. The 21st century stuff was, of course, interesting to see how it all started. But it involves boring characters and very cliché writing of women. We have the stereotypical jealous wife and seductive ex. Yeesh. None  of this was particularly necessary. The relationship drama which ended up spanning centuries could have easily been replaced with better and more complex characters. It was obvious where this plot was going so it didn't need to be this long.

The parallel timeline in later centuries offered a lot more. It's satisfying to see how terrible things are 'on the other side' so to speak. But I did feel the ultimate villains of the series are cartoonishly evil and weirdly dumb (they're basically the Enclave). I was hoping for something more banal-yet-sinister when you look closer. Like humanity sleepwalking into disaster or something. And

the reasoning for the nukes did not convince me. There's no way that could happen, that any government would give up so easily and just say fuck it.

The later storylines that portray silo uprisings were just okay. Mission's story was just boring to be quite honest - it goes exactly how you think it would. Since we know what happens to silo 18 already, I wasn't motivated to finish this section. It was skippable. Seeing Jimmy's backstory was better, but still, no surprises there. The way his thoughts were written was weird too. He's supposed to be 16, not 10. The best part was when he finds the cat. But again, this whole section should have been much shorter.

To expand on the writing, it was very basic. I'm not sure why it was worse than in Wool. Everyone talked the same way. This was especially strange in the 2049 scenes - they sound like they take place in the early 2000s instead. The way people talk, the computers, the behaviours. Really weird. It's wild to think the main character was born in 2014 or so.

This instalment gets 2.75 stars - it was okay. I found it fascinating and was motivated to read for about 75% of it, but it really needed heavier editing. That being said, I do respect an author that takes an entire book to cover backstory. I love me some slow-build tragedy.