Shutdown by Heather Anastasiu is a fast-paced and satisfying conclusion to the Glitch series. It follows Zoe as she faces impossible odds to protect her world and loved ones. With intense action, twists, and strong character growth, it wraps up the trilogy well.

Zoe has really changed as the story has progressed through the series but I think this book really shows that. She starts off book three being not just angry but at times consumed by rage. We have seen a girl that has had to learn to deal with emotions in the last year instead of the last 16 like she was supposed to. Plus she has had to deal with so much tragedy and conflict that would make anyone have that feeling of I give up. I think she has those moments where she thinks it would be easier to just sleep forever. She has lost the person she loves, well they will never be the same at least. She feels like she is constantly failing the people who look to her to lead them. This girl is definitely depleted. She is one of those people who you would say that she is already dead but she just refuses to lay down. There is a drive in Zoe that seems to override all her other instincts, even though she’s been pushed and shoved she just can’t accept giving up. Adrien says that Zoe doesn’t know how to survive but she does, but she also knows that she can not survive herself if she doesn’t save the people she cares about.
For some reason I was not the biggest fan of Adrien in the previous books. I think book two I liked him better but he always seemed overly driven by his visions. Obviously Adrien had something horrible happen to him in book two that completely changed him. Although the basic components of Adrien are still there he has become a different Adrien. I kept expecting him to change his name. This new Adrien made me laugh at times, he acted a little on the Vulcan side. I was like alright he’s definitely channeling some Spock here. He has become more fueled by logic than he is by emotions being that he has had them ripped away.I was wondering if it was mean of me to think that he is better this way.
Talk about a role switch with Zoe and Adrien. I was thinking back to the first book and how Adrien kind of had to teach Zoe how to feel, how to understand that there is more to the world than just what you see. Now it’s almost like Zoe has to do the same with him and she spends a lot of time yearning for the Adrien that was. I like when she finally accepts who he is.
We still have a lot of the same side characters, although their roles vary and they are not as prominent as they were in book 2. Max is still there and trying to gain Zoe’s forgiveness. His actions are so crazy and sometimes it makes sense for him. I feel sorry for him almost but at the same time I don’t.
So there is lead up to a battle and I was happy with how it played out. Sometimes you get these build ups and then you think in your head..is that it? That was not the case with this book. The action is definitely solid. I don’t want to give too much away about it but I really liked how it ended. How the series ended, it explains things and what is going to happen next. It was a good way of tying it up at the end.

I think I would have loved this book if I had read them in order first. I missed out on a lot of character development that really doesn't allow me to fully appreciate this finale. There was action from beginning to end, the characters leapt off the page and it was like seeing everything in 3D. I'm sad that it's over, but looking forward to revisiting the whole journey.

Absolutely adored the ending to his series. Zoe went through so much and I think this quote describes it perfectly:

"Sleep was so easy. Empty. Nothing was asked of me there. Waking meant entering back into the world of struggle and strife, and I didn’t want that, not yet."

That quote hit me in the all the feels. However, as the story goes on, I adored the ending to this wonderful series.

This is a review of the Glitch trilogy by Heather Anastasiu. I received a copy of the last book, Shutdown, in exchange for this honest review. Shutdown is available as of today!

The Young Adult literature market is flooded with dystopian literature, and while it is my favorite subgenere, I often feel like I am wading through the titles, trying to decide which ones are worth a read and which ones to skip. Lately, I find myself reading books I wish I had skipped, and since I had heard so little about the Glitch series, I figured it would be the same. But I ended up loving it. It is definitely a series that gets stronger as it goes, but the whole trilogy is worth a read.

Zoe is never sad. She is never angry. She never thinks for herself - until she starts glitching. In the community, all pain and war have been replaced with a computer chip implanted in each person's brain, which turns almost the entire population into work drones. The only glimpses of free thought come sometimes during the teen years when the brain grows faster than the chip can compensate for and the teen experiences brief periods of freedom from the collective. Zoe is one such glitcher. She has discovered the beauty and color of being free and isn't sure she wants to give it up. She has also discovered glitching has given her a special power, a power that if revealed would mean certain deactivation.

I have to admit the first book in the Glitch trilogy (Glitch) wasn't my favorite. In the first book we learn that not only are the chip implants malfunctioning, but glitching in a way that causes the teens to develop powers. It felt very Borg meets X-Men meets dystopian literature. It took a while for the story to develop, but I liked the story by the time I finished it. I liked that even though there were two boys both interested in Zoe, it quickly switched from the feeling of a love triangle to falling in love and staying in love with one boy for the rest of the trilogy.

Override(Glitch 2), picks up where Glitch left off. In this book Zoe has escaped the community and is living at The Foundation, a compound for glitchers like herself. She is dealing with severe allergies to the surface and is working together to pool their abilities to try and free other drones from The Community, only to find out their enemy is also gathering a pool of their own glitchers to fight against them. I liked the second book a lot more than the first. There is action, the introduction of some great new characters and a lot of movement in the plot. The second book also broke my heart a little bit - major tragedy with one of the main characters left the book on a sad note, but it was well written and compelling. I was dying to read the last book after this one.

Shutdown, (released today!) the final book in the trilogy, picks up where the second book heartbreakingly ended. It shows the resistance losing everything, and Zoe having to pick herself up and keep going after jeopardizing everybody she loves. It is a book of fight and struggle. I really liked this book. I feel like so many books are afraid to push the limit. They want a magical, happy ending when, if this was reality, not such a magical, happy ending could exist. I kept waiting for everything to smooth over and all past tragedies to be forgotten, on par with the norm in books these days, and it didn't happen. The end was a struggle, a beautiful struggle. The main character and her love interest learned and grew together. There was no magical cure, things didn't end completely happily ever after, but they ended happy, showing that work and love can create happy endings when fairy tale ones just won't fit.

As a whole, the Glitch trilogy was a great read. It ended stronger than it started, but I loved the series, the characters and the fact that the author wasn't afraid to make hard decisions. It is the hard decisions that can really make a series great.