Cat’s hacking skills weren’t enough to keep her from losing everything—her identity, her past, and now her freedom. She’s trapped and alone, but she’s survived this long, and she’s not giving up without a fight.
Though the outbreak has been contained, a new threat has emerged—one that’s taken the world to the brink of a devastating war. With genetic technology that promises not just a cure for the plague, but a way to prevent death itself, both sides will stop at nothing to seize control of humanity’s future.
Facing her smartest, most devastating enemy yet, Cat must race against the clock to protect her friends and save the lives of millions on the planet’s surface. No matter the outcome, humanity will never be the same.
And this time, Cat can’t afford to let anything, or anyone, stand in her way.

Wow, I’ve just finished This Vicious Cure and I have to say that it was one huge ride from start to finish and I loved it. Perhaps at the current time a dystopian about a mutated virus may have been an unusual choice and honestly I picked this as a March read before the lockdown began. I’m glad I decided to run with it.

Whilst This Cruel Design dropped back on the heart pounding pace of This Mortal Coil, it’s back with full force this time round, I honestly couldn’t stop turning the pages as set piece rolled into set piece, there truly is no let up for any of our characters, as we’ve lost the cat and mouse of earlier books and its an all out race to the finish. After the cliffhanger of book 2, it’s unsurprising that we follow this story as a dual POV between Catarina and Jun Bei, the VR world that Cat finds herself in offers up a large amount of freedom with the writing and gives us an overview of what’s happening across the board. It actually worked out that it had a bit of an added angle for me in that it had been over a year since I read book 2 so I found myself also as disorientated as the characters did with their wiped 6 months – I loved the added layer of not remembering which characters could be fully trusted.

What this book has in spades is information, information about everyone and everything – honestly I had no idea that there could be so much left for readers to discover but it’s a constant stream of reveals and plot twists, but I did have to pay attention (not so easy when you’re on lockdown with a 5 and 9 year old) as the science again plays a huge part and it did need me to go back over some pages to really get into my head what was happening especially with so many programmes and potential cures flying around between the factions. I also found that quite large plot points were wrapped up in a couple of sentences within large battles, I did blink and miss some which again led me going back – however, this is not something I can lay as a fault as I was surrounded by distraction for the most part.

I can’t go much further with the story or the characters though as it’s near impossible not to spoil something, but I found it an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the trilogy that encompassed everything I had loved about what had come before and racked it up 10 points. I was utterly blown away by it and am sad to see the series end.

5*