This book combines good character development, especially in Connor, with a really moving and heart wrenching concept. It takes the secret hidden idea of abortion and forces you to look at it in broad daylight. It’s a truly tragic story. But yet in it we see Connor, this teen who is really what we might call an at-risk child: violent, angry. But throughout this book as he faces trial after trial, each trial forcing him to take a moral stand and act upon his beliefs. And it changes him: the way he thinks, the man he is. So we’re seeing this boy become a man and decide things for himself about reality, all the while watching the echoes of a reality that while in the book is lived out in the open, in real life is often pushed to the sidelines, designed for us to forget what it is we’re actually doing.

I thought this book had a very thought provoking theme about what happens when we stop living: when everything is trivial and doesn’t ultimately add up to anything because the coins can be earned again, the lives reset, the game over but never ultimately ending. It’s a bleak picture, but Cline does a great job making you really think through it.

I absolutely love the complexity of the plot, with Card’s ability to draw you into his world incredible. Ended is a highly believable, well-developed character, but every character in the book has a depth to them that leaves you feeling like you understand them at a deep enough level that you can almost empathize with even the villains. The story flows beautifully and keeps you wanting more and more of it, never quite sure where the book is going into it draws to a brilliant close. Easily one of my favorite books ever.