State of Alliance - Review

State of Alliance (Collapse #5)

By: Summer Lane

Published: January 27, 2015 by WB Publishing

302 pages

Source: Personal Kindle Library

(Goodreads / Amazon)

Summary:

There is no such thing as safe. 
For Commander Cassidy Hart, staying alive is only one of her day-to-day problems. As a newly minted Senator of the State of California, she must travel to Monterey Bay with the hope of bringing an agreement between the militia forces and the Pacific Northwest Alliance as the United States desperately battles against the shadow invasion forces of Omega. 

But Monterey is not what it seems. The threat of another Omega attack is imminent, and Commander Chris Young - the love of Cassidy's life - is not the only important person who is keeping secrets. Assassinations, betrayal and startling revelations lie ahead. 
The war is now. Fight or die. 
Choose your side. 

The fifth installment in the international bestselling YA/NA Post-Apocalyptic Series.

MY REVIEW:
This series continues to be an action packed, 100% clean Young Adult/NA post-apocalyptic series that I very much enjoy! There's never much down time and the rare moments of perceived safety and contentment are short lived.

If you're new to this series, go check out my review for book one, State of Emergency. It's very hard to review book 5 in a series without giving away vital information from the previous 4 books to readers who haven't yet checked out the series. You may not want to read ahead, not because there'll be spoilers necessarily, but because of the nature of the progression of this series, more than likely something will be spoiled for you.

This series is about how an electromagnetic pulse destroyed modern society world wide. The US and its government collapsed. Those who survived soon find out a foreign force calling themselves Omega has begun to infiltrate the US to take over and capture everyone, filing them into camps to do the work which will support the Omega troops. Then there are those fighting against Omega, forming militias and gaining momentum in their cause. Now the characters are faced with negotiations to become part of the Pacific Northwest Alliance.

The main characters: 20 year old Cassidy Hart is now a militia member, a sniper, a Commander, and a Senator representing the new government of California. 29 year old Chris Young, is a militia member, a former Navy SEAL, a Commander, and the love interest of Cassidy.

To catch you up to speed for where our characters find themselves at the start of book 5, the capitol has just been hit by a bomb or a missile, and everyone is scrambling to quickly set up a recovery area and teams to start finding survivors.

I normally cringe when later books in a series spend pages and pages on recapping everything that's happened up to that point but this was a rare exception to my feelings on that. There is so much leading up to book 5 in this series that it is important the reader doesn't lose sight of what has occurred and whose to blame. I valued the brief recap that is listed in Chapter 1. It didn't go on and on. It was to the point and was as if Cassidy was writing a journal entry telling her story of hardship and how she's come to be in the roles she finds herself.

Cassidy is a very strong heroine. That's not to say she doesn't depend on and lean on others for support and encouragement. But her circle of trusted friends is incredibly small, especially as she soon realizes that nowhere is safe from Omega and its followers and sympathizers.

I have a few irritations, if you want to call them that. One is that we didn't get farther in the story. I would like to see these books be much longer to therefore make more progress in the overall story and plots. I always feel like just when it's really getting good it ends. My second irritation is that, even though this whole series has been 100% clean of language and mature content, that the romance part of the story between Cassidy and Chris would be more developed. I realize it's a very small part of the overall story but as a romance fan first and foremost, I would enjoy their relationship to be a bit more intense. Sure, war is all around them, but what keeps humanity going are the connections you share with other people.

Nevertheless, I still very much enjoyed yet another Collapse book and look forward to what's to come for our favorite Freedom Fighters! There's no word yet on book 6's release date as of the writing of this post, but at the end of book 5 the author lets the reader know it's "to be continued in book 6".

Favorite Quotes:
I am a fighter, now. Nothing stands in my way. I am capable. I am fast. I am smart.

"Dwelling on what was isn't a wise thing to do, my girl. It'll distract from what's important now."

"Sometimes you have to say something, or the moment will be over, and it will be too late."

Hope for the best, get ready for the crappy.

Love is not made. Love just happens.

"We're not helpless," I say. "We're fighters. And we'll keep fighting, because that's what we do best."

Language Rating: 0 (none)
Mature Content Rating: 0 (none)
Final Rating: 4 stars