I'm Going Slightly Mad - Queen

Death Sentence
Escape from Furnace, Book 3

Author: Alexander Gordon Smith
Pages: 261
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giraux

Warning: This is part of a series. The review will contain spoilers for the previous books.

Brief Summary:
At the dramatic conclusion to Solitary, Alex, Zee and Simon had almost escaped (again). This time they had the good idea of climbing out the chimney of the incinerator. Unfortunately, it got turned on and they were all burning to death.

Or not. You may already have guessed that they probably didn't die, since there was another book in the series. Now Alex has to face the final horror of furnace: becoming an experiment, a monster, or dying in the process.

Review:
Although Death Sentence has all of the action and grossness of the prior installments, I definitely was not as engrossed (see what I did there?) as I was before. I found myself getting a bit bored in some parts.

The beginning was rough. I mean, he's undergoing the change and mostly just having nightmares. Then he wakes up and the Warden says things. He fights with himself to hold onto Alex Sawyer. He has Achilles-level rage. He feels guilt. There are some scenes that are reminiscent of the reprogramming in A Clockwork Orange, which I really hope was an intended reference.

So, in this installment, you actually do get to learn a bit more about the origins of Furnace. Actually, there were a couple of subtle hints before this point, which I noticed, but ignored, hoping that wasn't where Smith was going with this. Well, it is. Sigh. Maybe it will be cool, but I worry that it will just make me angry with stereotypes. I guess that remains to be seen.

The next book, The Fugitives, is poised to be hugely exciting. Even after having been less enthused with this one, I'm excited to find out what will happen next.

Rating: 2.5/5

"It finally happened - happened
It finally happened - uh huh
It finally happened - I'm slightly mad - oh dear!"