Status Updates From The Fallen (The Outside, #2)

"It took all parts of Yasira, working in concert, to do this. It took the full will and determination of the Strike Force...the voracious curiosity of the Scientist...It took the deep-down parts...There were parts of Yasira...who still mostly wanted to die...they took the brunt of that pain, shielding the others...This was better than death; this was pain with a purpose. Even their brokenness fit here."

"'And when you've done this sort of work, your supervisors have been satisfied?' 'I don't know, sir. Mostly they don't say anything one way or the other'... Akavi's head tilted. 'I see why you failed basic training...You're not only a bad liar, you're PAINFULLY honest...You're not thinking even a little bit of how to spin the facts...It's refreshing.'"

Oooh. Yeah, Enga being normal-autistic before her angel transformation makes a lot of sense. And I already feel bad for her about how we seem to be getting to that!

“Change will come, again and again, in ways that some of us can instigate but none can control. The angels want to control it by killing us. The secret they pretend not to know…is that even killing all of us wouldn’t give them back control. The secret is that the angels have already lost the war; they will never have control again.”

“Yasira could barely think…She wanted to do six things at once…But Tiv was in danger. Tiv was afraid. That was unacceptable…Yasira reached out, gathered the full force of Outside from deep inside her, and shoved.”

“A very small, very reasonable part of Yasira pointed out that the team had never told her she couldn’t look at something…The team had never controlled Yadira’s movements…Yasira knew who had done those things to her, and it wasn’t her team. It was possible to know very well where a fear came from, and for that knowledge not to help even a little bit.”

“But the Gods tortured people too…It was just that everyone believed it was different…and these screams were necessary for the greater good…Tiv had really once believed that there was a difference between what the Gods did and what humans used to do to each other. She couldn’t remember, anymore, just what the difference was.”

“But Tiv no longer believed in Gods. Obviously They existed, but she no longer believed They would help her at all. She sometimes caught herself reaching back for those beliefs, on instinct…But nothing was there. No one was going to decide what Tiv should do anymore, but Tiv.”

“Tiv understood neurodiversity. Yasira would never have dated a woman who didn’t…But Yasira hadn’t been like this when Tiv fell in love with her. And she feared what Tiv might think, what Tiv might say, if she understood how deep the change really went.” 😢

“Akiujal chuckled darkly. ‘What, then, is the virtuous thing to do when we don’t have enough?…Starve? Sustain ourselves through heresy, which will be punished just as viciously as violence? Or we could try to collaborate with the gone people…But that wouldn’t be your style either…The gone people might fight.’”

“Angels who’d shot mortals for trying to cross the border…Angels who’d injured mortals, under the guise of crowd control…Angels who’d captured mortals and made them disappear, to be interrogated or punished…Not long ago, most mortals in the Chaos Zone had trusted angels completely.”

“He was hardly going to object on moral grounds; he and Akavi had done many things more terrible than seeking revenge. It was just…He’d had a vague hope, maybe, that life on the run would be different. They’d find different things to do, on their own terms.”
Elu, babe: You deserve more than this endless unrequitedness. LEAVE.

“The messages in Tiv’s pile contained supply requests and offers, but also news of the kind angels didn’t want shared…Stories of the angels’ atrocities. Essays and arguments about what it all meant…Tiv didn’t know how to lead a resistance, but she knew how to keep one alive.”

Hm. After that it’s kind of hard to keep believing that Akavi has real feelings for Elu deep down. But people who care about each other do say hurtful things when they’re angry or let down.. And Akavi did take care of Enga.. I’m not quite ready to believe that he’s simply a cold-hearted manipulator. That would not line up with the more complex character the author has been building.

I almost wish we hadn’t gotten that glimpse inside Akavi’s head after the [redacted for spoilers]. It might have been more fun to be in the dark with Elu, wondering, knowing rationally that Akavi probably didn’t mean it and it was just manipulation, but unable to help hoping that just maybe, it really meant more…
I also think Akavi feels more/differently than he’s willing to admit to himself :D

I noticed how the narrator often gasps for breath between sentences, and now I can’t stop hearing it

Aw, poor Enga. I think this is the first glimpse we get inside her head, and she might be overtaking Elu as my favorite of the angels.

I really hope I don’t have to sit through a case of book-two-itis for a large portion of this book. Yasira and Tiv’s storyline kind of feels that way :/ At least Akavi and Elu’s storyline is more focused. (And I really want to see how that dynamic develops :3)