The Mime Order

"Words are everything. Words give wings even to those who have been stamped upon, broken beyond all hope of repair."

5 STARS Well, she's done it again. Samantha Shannon can have all the awards, every single one of them, because I could not love this series more, and I am on this train until I pass on into the æther. Shannon has created such a unique world I don't think I'll ever be able to view anything in any other fantasy or dystopian novel the same again because none yet have even compared with The Bone Season. This book picks right up where the previous left off, Paige Mahoney, the other survivors of the penal colony, and the Seven Seals aboard a train headed for SciLo. After a shaky, harrowing arrival, Paige must come to terms with her past, understanding both the penal colony's existence and the government's corruption that can no longer be ignored or squandered for the Syndicate. Additionally, Paige must find where her true loyalties lie within this approaching war, not where others say they should be. This sequel had everything and more of the first, and my expectations were exceeded and I can only hope for more to come! The Writing As in The Bone Season, Shannon crafts a wonderful story that dances on spider threads through a very possible future, though with a slightly different past than our own reality. Rather than overwhelming, the detail in this book is the perfect balance of description and blurred backgrounds, allowing the characters to navigate a world the reader is unaccustomed to, but in such a way that the reader is not left behind amid neither flowery language nor a blank canvas. Shannon has some innate ability to hold me on the edge of my seat throughout the entirety of this book, from the gruesome scenes of the Syndicate, the mystery of the political machinations of the Cohorts and their Mime Lords and Queens, and the internal conflict within Paige revolving around the Rephaim's penal colony and a world she is no longer completely tethered to. The Characters Like in the previous book, the characters truly drive this story, but in this installment we learn quite a lot more about the other Seals and their histories. Through Paige we gain insights into the lives of each of the major and minor characters, from buskers to binders to billionaires, and each helps tether us to this foreign world we know all too well. Though some are more unrelatable than others, each character is three dimensional, never flat, never cookie-cutter, and this is one of the things that makes me love this book: there is a whole range of people to read this book, and there is going to be a person going through some sort of conflict that you can relate to. Have issues holding up to expectations and feel like you're carrying the world on your back? Bingo, Eliza. Feel that you don't really belong to the world, or that no one will listen to you when really you know what to do? Paige is your girl. Have a problem giving up control for a single second that everything could come crumbling down? I would give you a character, but you could probably find this in almost all of them, and that's the beauty in this book: it is completely and totally believable because the characters act as normal people would; they aren't perfect, they make mistakes, and they learn from them, or die trying. The Story I will never not love Shannon's originality, or the fact that I will never in a million years ever catch every detail or every hint or foreshadowing that she has laced through the book. It's like a web, dew-dripped with descriptions about to fall away from you if you don't catch them fast enough, and the more you grab, the more tangled up and invested you are in the story. The romance was intriguing but not overwhelming, the mystery consuming but not oppressive. I liked that we got to know more about the clockwork of the Seven Dials, the individual cogs and parts through the Syndicate, and how interesting SciLo really is. The gang and criminal network through the story was new but interesting and I can't wait for more information to come rolling toward me in the books to follow. The Mime Order is enthralling, beautiful, and rich beyond belief in this economy of words in such a way that if Shannon never stopped writing for not a single second in her life it would still never be enough to satiate me in the beauty of her world. Share your thoughts!