Edgeland
by Jake Halpern & Peter Kujawinski

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: YA fantasy

Friends Wren and Alec live on Edgeland, the nearest island to the Drain. People from all over bring their dead to Edgeland to be prepped for the afterlife, before sending them into the Drain, a gigantic hole in the middle of the ocean from which nothing ever returns. Alec works for one of the houses that preps the dead, while Wren is an orphan who has to survive by her wits and is trying to save enough to leave Edgeland. But when she is accused of killing a prominent man, she has to escalate her plans, which leads her and Alec to take a huge risk…one that leads them right into the Drain.

This book is not a sequel Nightfall, the other book by these authors that I read, but I was still excited to learn that there was a book set in the same world. These authors are really good at coming up with intriguing geological and environmental world features and creating a sense of urgency in the plot. Though it takes a little while for the main action given in the synopsis (Wren and Alec falling into the drain) to happen, the build-up isn’t boring. Then when our two main characters go down the Drain, I was really interested to see what kind of strange, new world the authors came up with. And it was, like this book’s predecessor, fairly atmospheric and creepy for a while. But then, also like the predecessor, it hit a point where nothing new enough or surprising enough came about, and I started to not really care much about what happened to any of these characters.

I also have to say that I didn’t really feel like the afterlife/religion side of things was the best way to go. And that’s not even because I’m a Christian, since the fictional religions here didn’t hit close enough to home to even remotely make me feel like the authors were poking fun at Christianity (I can’t speak to their intention, just to how I viewed it). However, it just never really made a whole lot of sense to me.

The two religions stem from the day/night cycle in this part of the world—day lasts for 72 hours and night for 72 hours. The Suns come out in the day and the Shadows come out at night, and they only mingle (with sometimes violent results) during dusk and twilight. But though both sides have different origins for their beliefs, they don’t seem to believe anything different enough for it to make sense that they’re so opposed to each other. They just hate each other because they’re taught to hate each other, which I guess is kind of a commentary on real life, but not really. In real life, the religions that are most opposed to each other generally have quite different beliefs and definitely do not believe in the same afterlife, whereas the Suns and Shadows all believe that when they die, their bodies will be sent down the Drain to purgatory, where they will live in the same place as the other faction, just on different islands.  So they can keep hating each other without being near each other…sounds like a fun afterlife. Of course, the intention is to eventually move on to “heaven,” of which the religions don’t seem to have much knowledge, but I’ll bet they’re still hoping to be kept separate. Then, without going into spoilers, what actually awaits down the drain isn’t quite what they’re expecting, yet in some ways, isn’t that far off. In the end, I was left with too many questions about who on earth and why on earth (well, not earth, but…you know what I mean) to feel that I really enjoyed the book that much. It wasn’t bad overall, and I think that some people who like darkish fantasy in the teenage age range would enjoy it. Though I’d recommend Nightfall (same authors, same world) over this one.

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