After finishing the first book of the series, I was so immersed with the story that I immediately jumped to the second. Needless to say, it most definitely was better than the first one.
Unlike the first book where we get to read only Olamina’s perspective, Now we get to hear Taylor, Marcos and Olaminas daughter Larkins’ thoughts as well. The book itself is written by Larkin but contains excerpts she collected from various sources.
The book begins five years after Earthseed settles into Acorn and things are pretty good with Olamina being pregnant and all. Then immediately we are thrown into a messy situation with armoured trunk shooting at Olamina and the gang, but it turns out it were operated by scared children whose parents are murdered and sisters kidnapped. They are later taken into Earthseed along with their hurt brother. As they look for the sisters, Olamina finally finds Marcus with a slave trader. Whis is bought into Earthseed. He explains his plight after their home town was burnt to the ground and tells that the rest of their family is killed.
Marcus, being the son of a christian dad, doesn’t belive in Earthseed and eventually tries to preach to the people but immediately is questioned repeatedly which gets him angry with his sister and leaves which another family. In this time, same a extremely christian version of Trump named Jerret gets elected. His followers, the crusaders, soon capture Acorn then convert it into a “re-education camp”. They kill people including Olaminas closest friend and her husband, take away everyones children, enslave them with slave collars for almost 2 years. With the help of nature bringing down the control units of slave collers, they finally escape.
They decide to split up and start searching for their children. Eventually everyone gets separated and Olamina finds her brother and tells what happens asks her for help finding her daughter. Instead of helping he runs away, she finds him again and ultimately he never actually helps her find her dauther even after knowing exactly she is. Meanwhile, she spreads Earthseed like wild fire. Time flies, Larkin moves into Marcus’ place, studies hard and becomes a famous Dreamasks content creator. She starts researching about Olamina and finally they meet and realize they are mother and daughter.
The book has somber ending with Olamina dying after achieving her dream of moving people outside the plant and Larkin never truely becoming close to her mother. Larkin did have a unreasonable hatred toward her mother. Maybe because of her jealousy with her mothers focus on Earthseed. She also has a unreasonable liking toward her uncle Marcus, who is an extremely ungrateful SOB. I, personally, think the series ending here was for the best.