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Death Sentence


Death Sentence is the third book in Alexander Gordon Smith’s YA horror series Escape from Furnace.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the series, this review will have inevitable spoilers for the first two books - Lockdown and Solitary. You’ve been warned!

Alex has now tried to break out of the terrifying, underground prison Furnace Penitentiary twice. He almost made it this time. Almost.

But he was caught. And now he is being punished.

This punishment is even worse than going in solitary, where he was sure he was losing his mind. This punishment assures him he will lose his mind – literally. He’s being turned into a minion of Furnace, a muscled twin of the other blacksuits.

The shadowy, treacherous warden is determined to have Alex forget himself – but the only way to survive is to try and remember.

This time it’ll be a lot harder to escape… since the prison is his mind.

I have read each of the Escape from Furnace books and have found them to be creatively disturbing, grisly thrillers. Death Sentence certainly puts itself on that same caliber. However, I also am beginning to feel like the overall concept is starting to get a tad old, a bit repetitive and maybe a little frustratingly monotonous.

Though there was some great plot development and answers given to long held questions, the revelations weren’t as satisfying as I wanted. It could most certainly just be me – so don’t stop yourself from reading Death Sentence because of what I’m saying!

Here’s the thing, a good portion of the last quarter of Death Sentence was quite interesting and exhilarating – it’s just that I’m not super into the series anymore. Now, if I was told that the next book (Fugitives, apparently coming out in winter 2012) was the last in the series, then I might be more involved. Because, in my opinion, the story is being stretched out farther than it really needs to be. I don’t think I would be rushing out to read/buy more books in the series if I don’t know when the end date was, and that it was soon.

Yet I know that I may be in the minority in this opinion – so please read Death Sentence for yourself and enjoy it! It could be that the series has run its course for me, but is just kicking in gear for you!

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