On My Bookshelf: The Towering Sky by Katharine McGee

The basic plot from Amazon: When you have everything, you have everything to lose.

Welcome back to New York, 2119. A skyscraper city, fueled by impossible dreams.

LEDA just wants to move on from what happened in Dubai. Until a new investigation forces her to seek help—from the person she’s spent all year trying to forget.

RYLIN is back in her old life, reunited with an old flame. But when she starts seeing Cord again, she finds herself torn: between two worlds, and two very different boys.

CALLIOPE feels trapped, playing a long con that costs more than she bargained for. What happens when all her lies catch up with her?

WATT is still desperately in love with Leda. He’ll do anything to win her back—even dig up secrets that are better left buried.

And now that AVERY is home from England—with a new boyfriend, Max—her life seems more picture-perfect than ever. So why does she feel like she would rather be anything but perfect?

Why I liked it:  I was so excited to finish the Thousandth Floor trilogy and The Towering Sky did not disappoint. Like The Thousandth Floor and The Dazzling Heights, The Towering Sky has multiple narrators and begins with its ending. While the narrators changed slightly from book 1 to book 2, they remained the same from book 2 to book 3, and while this time I was certain I knew whose death would come at the end of the book (and I guessed correctly!), there were still twists at the end that I didn't see coming. But thank goodness for those twists because I'm a sucker for a happy ending.

When the book begins, many of the characters have become distant from one another for a variety of reasons, but a renewed investigation into Eris's death and their shared guilt over the knowledge of what really happened that night on top of the tower bring them all back together. Calliope's character grew on me as did Avery's over the course of this book, and I was eager to see what would happen to my old favorites like Watt, Rylin, and Leda.

Classroom application: This series is appropriate for high school students due to mature content (sex, drug and alcohol use). As with the previous books in the trilogy, since the novel is set in the not too distant future, the novel could also serve as a springboard for students to develop their own "utopian" worlds with consideration to economics, government, education, transportation etc.

Watt's relationship with his computer Nadia becomes increasingly complicated and could lead to research and possibly an argument essay or debate about the dangers of technology becoming too "smart."

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of The Towering Sky for yourself, you can find it on Amazon here.

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