The Survival of Molly Southbourne - Review

Author: Tade Thompson

Genre: Novella/Horror

Format: Paperback

Pages: 128

These novellas were a great library find. I'm enjoying this series and I'm excited that book 3 is out in May of 2022. Which will be here before I know it, and I'm excited to see how Thompson is going to tie this series up. Also for anyone who hasn't read this series I can't promise that what follows doesn't contain spoilers. So, if this series is on your TBR read with caution. I do my best to avoid spoilers, but this is one of those books that makes it hard!

The Survival of Molly Southbourne started just minutes after this book ends with the team set to watch over Molly Prime showing up. From there it follows that Molly she learns basically how to be human without any guiding help. This means that for a few pages there it's a bit of a wild ride as this molly loses both her mind and herself. 

What broke my heart about this book is how this molly was left out in the wild without any sense of direction. Because she looks like an adult but is in fact hours old and is not only learning how to be human, but how to be Molly Southbourne without giving anything away about how she's just a "molly". So there is a wild chapter where it all sort of blows on her, and it's kind of sad. But, there is also something about this Molly, she keeps on going and trying and learning, and by the end of this book, I feel she was starting to find out who she was.

Now, what I love about this book is we get a closer look at how exactly Molly Prime was able to create duplicates. We get a little bit of the backstory of the who, the what, and how. We also meet another woman with this power, only her doppelgangers don't try and kill. Somehow her's are tame and they've learned to live together. Something the mollys were still learned at the end of the book. 

We also get a little bit of a harder look at the people that were originally set to protect Molly Prime, but now seem to after the doppelganger that's taken over in her place. Tables are turning now that Molly has changed the game. Something it sounds like the next book is going to touch on a little more.

The other part I really liked about this book was the small little interludes with got with Professor as the molly inside of him grew. I thought they were interesting, and while as a whole they didn't serve a real purpose to the story itself, he was a big part of the first book. So I'm glad he got a small part in this book, even it was just his death.

Despite all the good and the fact I devoured this book, it still took me two days to read. While I enjoyed it, The Survival of Molly Southbourne suffers from sophomore syndrome. It's not as good as the first book, but it serves as a point of setting up the third, and I think final, book in the series. It's not terrible or boring, it's just lacking after the rollercoaster of emotions of the first book. This is more subdued, and it's a hundred percent because this is a different Molly. They are the same, but not.

So at the end of the day, I enjoyed the book and I'm excited for the next book to see how it's all going to wrap up. Probably in tears and so much blood.

HAPPY READING!!