This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
At the end of Unearthed, Jules and Mia found their way through all the clues in the ancient temple on faraway Gaia, leading them to a gigantic spaceship. They stowed away on the ship to stay away from Earth government agents who wanted them dead, and the two teens were horrified to find that while the vessel was completely empty when they got on it, after it launched, portals opened up and aliens swarmed into the spaceship.
Undying picks up right where the first book left off, with Jules and Mia hiding in ducts and trying to figure out how they can possibly save themselves and, even more important, save their home planet from a race of people who are out to take over Earth. What’s particularly terrifying is that the aliens look exactly like humans, but they couldn’t possibly be, could they? And no one on Earth knows that the ancient race with advanced technology is a) still around and b) out to get them. Leaders of the International Alliance group are desperate only to get the tech that was left behind by the Undying because it can help save a planet that’s dying.
Jules and Mia manage to get on a shuttle and get to Earth, but they find out quickly that no one believes their story — and the IA is determined to keep them imprisoned. They escape, of course, but as they continue to cross paths with a pair of Undying called Atlanta and Dex, they continue to feel some inkling that at least some of the Undying want to help people on Earth. What in the world can two teenagers do to convince leaders of Earth to listen to them and protect themselves against a deadly invasion? Or, if they can’t do that, to have some hand in stopping it themselves? It seems an impossible mission.
Once again, I just had a fun time reading this book. I’ve enjoyed all of Amie Kaufman’s YA space stories (such as These Broken Stars and The Other Side of the Sky), and this kept me enthralled. It’s fairly clean reading, too.
Rated: Mild. There are maybe up to a dozen uses of mild and moderate language, and then there are other uses of made-up cursing (based on other languages) by Jules and the aliens. There are some kissing scenes with not much detail that don’t go further, though the pair find themselves thinking briefly about more than that as they end up sleeping together in a bed one night. There are some scenes of violence throughout but nothing more than mild action.
