The Towering Sky by Katharine McGee Review

Overall Review: 3.25/5 Stars

"A world of startling glamour, dazzling technology, and unthinkable secrets. After all, when you have everything... you have everything to lose."

Goodreads

Non-Spoiler Section

So, I'll admit, it took a while for me to pick this one up, which is actually surprising because I loved the first two books in this series. I gave both those books 5 stars actually. I like Katharine McGee's writing style. It kept me engaged and for all three books in the series I didn't find myself putting them down for long stretches of time because I always wanted to know what was going to happen next. I did give this a 3.25 out of 5 (for Goodreads purposes, a 3).

If someone asked me to describe this book in 3 words: Futuristic Gossip Girl. I'm not huge into books that take place in the future, I'm not a huge sci-fi reader but this has a good balance. The series follows a group of teens who live 100 years into the future in "the thousandth floor building" in Manhattan. The building has...can you guess it... 1000 floors. They go to school there, they live there, there's parks, aquariums, etc. all in this one building. Some are rich socialites, others not so much, but they all have horrendous secrets. I was soooo excited for this book and don't get me wrong I definitely enjoyed it, but for me personally, it was missing something the first two books had. I do think this series would make an excellent TV series though!!!

This is your SPOILER WARNING! If you haven’t read The Towering Sky by Katharine McGee and don’t want to be spoiled, Stop Reading Now! (Of course come back after you’ve read so we can discuss!!)

Plot: (C+):

Okay here goes... the plot was... a lot. One thing I enjoy about the series is the morally gray characters. These characters are selfish... they make mistakes, terrible ones... and there are consequences. The thing I don't like is how sometimes the writing tried to make us feel bad... for the characters for suffering these consequences. That might be how I personally interpreted it though and I understand that. I did feel that the mid section of the book dragged very slightly and by the end I was missing answers.

One of my biggest hugest pet peeves in books is when the ending is rushed. I want answers and there's no need for rushed endings. This book had that a little. How did Avery get out of the pent house, climb onto the roof, and somehow get down without anyone seeing and without jumping? Where was Atlas sent? So did Leda confess or not? I wanted to know about Watt's second interview. There was also too much isolation. I wanted the characters to interact more.

The book did keep me entertained though. I always wanted to know who did what, how and if they'd get out of their situations and if our lovely characters were going to face repercussions, so props to Katharine McGee for that.

Characters (A-):

This has always been a character driven story and it's one of the things I love about it. This sections gonna be so long I apologize but everything's labeled so read what you're here for! Setting and Aesthetic come after characters!

Avery: I do love Avery. Everyone sees her as perfect except for herself. She has flaws but her secret compared to everyone else's? She was not hurting or affecting anyone in any way. So her secret is that her and her adopted (no blood relation at all) brother are in love with each other. Yeah, still weird and like kinda gross, but I think her secret is the least bad of any of the characters. Yet, she (for a period) suffered the most. I just wish she would have formulated a plan with Atlas at some point because if they wanted to be together everyone was gonna need to find out anyways sooo? I was SO ANGRY when everyone treated her horribly after her secret was exposed. I do think it was clever for Avery to fake her own death in the end, but I wanna know more about what happens to her! I really like her as a character and enjoyed reading from her perspective.

Leda: I have mixed feelings about Leda. Her secret is that she accidentally in a fit of annoyance and anger pushed her half sister (didn't know they were half sisters at the time), Eris off the roof of the tower, killing her. She's definitely better than she used to be. In the first book, I hated her. She was so selfish and pretty much screwed everyone's lives up. (Well, they all kinda did that themselves by having their secrets, but you know what I mean.) In this book, she does do better (kinda). She accepts her friends back into her life and realizes the mistakes she's made (poor Eris!) So, while she isn't my favorite character anymore, I don't hate her which is an improvement! Good character development...but did she confess or...?

Watt: Watt falls into the same category as Leda. Sorta. His secret is he built an illegal computer named Nadia into his brain that he uses for hacking. He hacks the police station, looks at people's messages to each other and has attempted to get people to like him with it and cheated his way through a college interview (which fails anyways). Watt annoyed me in the first book but I ended up liking him here. By the end he gives up Nadia for good and does everything he can for Leda in this book, although I do kinda wish he had confessed to having Nadia and that she (yes his computer) is the one who killed Mariel (Eris' girlfriend). Keeping up yet?

Rylin: I really like Rylin and reading from her perspective. Avery lives on the 1000th floor, Cord's on 969, Leda's on 962, and even Watt lives on 294. The higher up in the tower you live, the wealthier you are. Rylin lives on 32. She's the only one we read from who is really struggling financially and it's kinda refreshing to see that side of things in this book. She does everything she can for her sister, I really like her relationship with her sister. Her character progression has been super fun. She started out holding crappy part time jobs to cleaning up at Cord's parties, to having a scholarship at the school the rich kids go to while dating Cord. She did let herself get inside her head and made rash decisions with all her relationships but she's probably my second favorite character after Avery.

Calliope: One word... why??? I actually kinda like Calliope and I think her plot line would be super interesting... AS ITS OWN BOOK. Calliope was a tad pointless in this book. This story is built on character interactions and how they're all intertwined. In the Dazzling Heights, she was involved with everyone else but in this one? She interacted with... her mom... her mom's new husband, his daughter, and Brice. Oh and she spoke to Avery for less than a full scene. The plot didn't tie into the storyline at all. Her stepfather and stepsister (or ex now) had no purpose really except but to eventually expose them and Brice doesn't interact with anyone but Calliope either... not even Cord... his BROTHER.

Cord and Brice: I feel like Cord and Brice could have been more present. I really liked Brice's character development over the series though and we see he's really not a bad guy. Another book pet peeve, stuff that could be avoided with...COMMUNICATION. Cord needed to work better to explain the situation with Hero to Rylin.

The Fullers: Trash. Actual Trash. (EXCEPT Atlas) Avery's mom and dad were horrible. All they cared about was image once he was elected mayor (and even before that to be honest). Instead of sitting down and having a thought out discussion with Avery and Atlas they freaked and automatically took drastic measure and now they'll probably never see their daughter again because they think she's dead. Atlas... you deserved better.

WHEW... NAILED IT! On to......

Setting (A-)

I LOVE the setting. Manhattan is obviously the perfect choice. The tower is so damn cool and interesting. Sometimes I wish we had gotten to see more of it and even to see just a tad more of outside the tower. Katharine did describe it very well but there were a few times I was struggling to picture how so much could fit into this one building. Ooh next edition of the book they should print maps of the tower in the front of the book! I would love that!

Aesthetics (A-):

I KNOW I KNOW. How could I give a book with an insanely beautiful cover an A MINUS? Surely it deserves an A PLUS! Wellllll.... when I talk about Aesthetics I discuss the cover AND the tile.

The cover alone gets an A+++. I think it's safe to say that Katharine McGee's cover designers knew what they were doing. They're absolutely beautiful. Each one is a different color but they theme perfectly together (which we all know I LOVE) and they look beautiful together on a bookshelf.

Now... the title... honestly I have heard sooooo many worse titles than this. The problem is not that the title is bad, it's that it's... forgettable. To me, at least. When I googled the book to look up pictures of the cover I accidentally typed ~ The Towering Heights ~. If you are familiar with the series you know that the second book is called The Dazzling Heights and this one is called The Towering Sky. Those titles are interchangeable. The first book, The Thousandth Floor is a good name for it because it introduces what the series is about... but with such beautiful font on the cover and the design itself... I expected something more memorable.

Side note - I totally picked up the first book in this series because of the beautiful cover!! I'm so glad I did! RECOMMENDED!

Such a beautiful logo! Katharine McGee is all about those aesthetics!!