This Vicious Cure, a review

This Vicious Cure by Emily Suvada is the final book in the This Mortal Coil trilogy, and one that I’ve been wanting to pick up for a while, but I finally got around to it and boy is this trilogy just perfect for me!

If you want to you can check out my thoughts on This Mortal Coil and This Cruel Design. I probably should’ve done this before I read TVC because I really struggled to remember what was going on with this one. 100% my fault because I didn’t reread the series and first read the other books back in 2018/19! I tried to find a recap but none were forthcoming… maybe I should make one? Anyways!

Despite the confusion, it only took me around 20/30 pages to get back into the swing of things and then I was back into loving this book and series. We follow two POVs in this book, Jun Bei is a stubborn little shit and honestly, if she wasn’t one of the main characters it would get her killed! I disagreed with her actions 90% of the time, but I did understand why she made all of her choices.

Cat I vibed with more. She has developed so much over this trilogy and is such a fighter. Seeing her try to survive and to save others within her major limitations was so gripping and I couldn’t put her sections down! I did also enjoy seeing Cat and Jun Bei communicating together and actually working together, rather than against each other, for once.

The resolution for this was, for me at least, a really good one. But I won’t tell you anything about that because it’s major spoilers! I think it brings together all of the elements of the series in a satisfying way, and yet I’m still disappointed that we don’t have more in this series!

On CAWPILE I rated this: Characters: 8, Atmosphere: 9, Writing: 9, Plot: 8, Intrigue: 8, Logic: 9, and Enjoyment: 8 giving a score of 8.43 and a 4.5* rating.

Highlight here for trigger warnings: gore, gun violence, blood, medical content, medical trauma, violence, cannibalism ,death of parent, violence, discussions of confinement.

I am so glad that the novella These Precious Stars is still on my tbr, because I really don’t want my time in this world to end! Suvada uses genetic manipulation and a society hell-bent on doing what individuals think is right for everyone in a fascinating way, and although this was published in Jan 2020, and written even before that, I think recent events have shown that Suvada knew the human psyche well!

Have you read any of the books in the This Mortal Coil series or do you plan to? If you’re on the edge I highly recommend them, they’re a wonderful YA dystopian that I am ridiculously glad made its way into my hands.

This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada

Okay so I did this backwards, I actually reviewed This Cruel Design (book 2) first. So if you’re interested then that review is available here! I reviewed that one first as I had received an ARC copy from the publishers and wanted to put up my review to coincide with the books release. This is also the first time I’ve been able to slot my review in, despite me finishing this book on the 8th October… so let’s get into the actual review!

Of course, I LOVED this book!!! It was absolutely amazing and I was completely engrossed from start to end. I adored our main character Cat and enjoyed slowly learning more about her background and also learning through her about how the world is and what has happened between now and the future in which this book is set.

The sci-fi, coding and tech side was so developed and clearly Emily had researched it well or previously had a good knowledge as it was in so much detail and was so interesting to learn about. It would be pretty cool if it was real! (Let me ignore the real world implications for a bit, okay?).

The ending of this book absolutely murdered me, as in lying on the kitchen floor making weird noises as my (at the time new) flatmate looked on in confusion. She’s not a reader. Yet. But it killed me and I cannot believe I hadn’t read this sooner. If you like any sort of dystopian, sci-fi, techy reads then definitely give this one a go! I will be reading absolutely everything Emily Suvada publishes in the future thanks to these two beauties ♥♥♥

This Cruel Design to break your heart!

I was lucky enough to win an ARC (advanced reader copy) of this book in a Twitter giveaway, and I was so excited! I hadn’t actually read This Mortal Coil at this point (book #1 in the series) but it was something I’d had my eye on and this gave me the push to bump it up my TBR (to be read) list. Once I had read Mortal Coil I was hooked and had to use a lot of self control to not just dive straight in to Cruel Design! But personally I will mix the plot of series’ together if I read them back to back so I gave myself some time, and then dove in.

From this point on I will be vaguely outlining the plot of The Cruel Design (which is book #2) so there will be some spoilers for book #1. Don’t read ahead if you don’t want to be spoiled! You’ve been warned!

So we continue to follow our protagonist Cat after what they thought was code to stop the Hydra virus has been released, and the extra code hidden within has been given to every human on the planet. The code that Lachlan can use to control and reprogram humanity. They’re in a race against Cartaxus, the corporation that has their own adgenda and will do anything to reach it, whether that is working with or against Catarina, Cole and Leoben.

The virus is continuing to evolve pass the vaccine and they have to head to Entropia, the base of all extreme hackers and coders, to find the woman who runs it, and who used to work on the code with Cartaxus until she escaped, Regina. But more comes to light than the three were expecting, and everything that Cat knew might turn out to be a lie.

So if that plot summary doesn’t sound good to you then…. well I guess this book isn’t for you. But if it does, oh my genehacking coders, you need to pick it up! This book had me reading well past when I wanted to go to sleep. I used to do this a lot as a child and thought that I had just “grown-up” and that is why I’m not kept up by books anymore. Apparently, I was wrong! I was up until 3am finishing this bad boy, and if you follow me on Instagram (@autumnofpellinor) you’ll have seen my stories when I finally finished the book. Emily killed me in the absolute best way! I was heartbroken, shocked, confused, angry, and I needed more! I can’t believe I’m going to have to wait so long for part three of this series, but I’m also super excited that there is going to be a book three! For some reason, I had assumed it was a duology and was expecting it to wrap up in this book!

If this is a genre/topic you enjoy then this book will be unputdownable and absolutely amazing! I did have one or two little gripes, but that’s just me being a pedantic pain in the arse (and probably just feeling angry at all the amazing plot twists and turns!) and Emily Suvada has absolutely nothing to worry about because this book was pretty much perfect!

This book is set to come out on the 30th October/1st November (Goodreads says Oct, my ARC copy says Nov so keep an eye out on both dates) and I 100% recommend picking this beauty up! The cover artist(s) did an amazing job on the cover and the book itself will blow you away, and if you haven’t read book #1 yet then get on it! It killed me so much that I was lying on the floor of my flat kitchen (and my poor flatmate who had only known me 3 weeks got to see a BookWorm disintegrating through shock, anger and love – she’s recovered now don’t worry) and couldn’t do anything. I can’t wait to read the short story which goes along with this series, and also absolutely anything else that Emily comes out with in the future! She is now one of my auto-read authors!! (I finished this book 3 days ago and I’m still in “aaaaggghhh” mode, which should also be an indicator for how much I loved this!)

Have you read This Mortal Coil or Thie Cruel Design? What did you think? Are you going to pick them up? Comment below! I need someone to nerd out with about this series!