Review ♡ The Pretenders by Rebecca Hanover

title ♡ the pretenders
author ♡ rebecca hanover
genre ♡ young adult; science fiction
pages ♡ 416
publisher ♡ sourcebooks FIRE
series ♡ the similars, book two
release date ♡ december 10, 2019
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ [ 5 out of 5 ]

In this conclusion to The Similars duology, Emma must figure out who she really is, decide between two boys with the same face, and stop a dangerous plan based on revenge.

Emma is still reeling from the events of her junior year at Darkwood. Not only is her best friend, Oliver, shockingly alive, but the boy she loves—his Similar, Levi—is still on the island where he grew up, stranded with his deranged creator.

More importantly, she is grappling with who she really is. Emma can’t accept the hard truths she learned last year and refuses to share her secrets with anyone, isolating herself from her friends and Ollie.

But when more of the Similars’ creator’s plot is revealed, Emma and her friends will have to try to stop him from putting a plan into motion that could destroy everyone she loves. 

Rebecca Hanover has absolutely blow me away again with the stunning conclusion to The Similars. We return to Darkwood with Emma not long after the end of the first novel, to see how life has been unfolding following the shocking twist at the end of the first novel. As per usual the book is full of mystery and intrigue and had me hooked for the entire book.

It was great to see that Emma continued to develop in the second novel as much as she had in the first. She retained her headstrong, feisty persona but also began to develop her logical capabilities. I enjoyed how she stood up for her friends, even though society had now abandoned the clones and stripped them of their rights. Emma really made the series a great read because she was so genuinely real that I would have though the book was being based off of a real person.

Hanover delivered on her usual promise of twists and turns, and the book is absolutely teeming with them. There was a lot of action in the book, and the plot didn’t run dry because it was always interesting. At no point did I consider pausing: I was transfixed for three hours in which I knew I had to finish reading and know what happened at the end. The pacing of the story made this increasingly easy read as each chapter helped unfold story without thrusting everything on you at once.

I welcomed the romantic elements of the book as they were a nice breather from the serious-nature of the events unfolding around Emma and her friends. I’ll admit it was a little hard to choose between Levi and Oliver, simply because I had grown to love them both in their own way. (But Levi won in my opinion because Levi was always bae.)

I seriously need to get my hands on physical copies of the books because my digital editions just aren’t good enough. This was hands-down once of my favourite book duology to read ever, and I look forward to any further work that Rebecca Hanover releases in the future.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
dee x

But don’t just take my word for it! Every one on the internet has an opinion, so please remember to check out a few others before you decide to buy or discard this book!

Jennifer says “I did like the ending. There was nice twists in it. Wish there was more to the ending…..”

Jackie says “If you like sci fi I’m sure this will be a good ending for you but for me it was like they tried to cram the entirety of Orphan Black into a half hour and for me it just didn’t work.”

At time of writing this review, the Hardcover version of the book is available on Amazon is available for £13.57 ($17.99).

Personally, that’s a lot of money to payout but the paperback version of novel will be released August 2020, with a RRP of £8.29 ($7.69) on Amazon.

I haven’t been able to find the prices for a Kindle version of the story unfortunately, so if you do know please let me know in the comments below!

♡ amazon ♡

Rebecca Hanover is the NY Times bestselling author of THE SIMILARS series. She earned a bachelor of arts from Stanford University in English and drama and won an Emmy as a staff writer on the CBS daytime drama Guiding Light. (It’s surprisingly heavy, and has scary sharp wings).

Rebecca lives in San Francisco with her husband and three kiddos, where she enjoys matcha lattes, hoodies, and a complete lack of seasons. She aspires to attend an actual hot Pilates class one day.

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