“‘I… I killed them,’ I stammered.”

From Eric Walters’ The Rule of Three: Will to Survive.

On top of all that young Adam has to endure with the mysterious power outage that left his neighborhood and most likely the entire world in the dark, he has had to kill an abductor to save himself.  However, Adam does not relent on his willingness to do the right thing, even when enemies on the outside will only use it to destroy the neighborhood.  The people of the community continue to add to the defenses of their secure neighborhood, but as the blackout stretches on, the food, weapons, and supplies also become more and more scarce.  While they have been able to defend against attacks from strangers on the outside, their greatest challenge will come from fighting off the largest militarized group yet that has a new leader who knows the neighborhood defenses like they are his own invention.  The question for Adam (and the entire neighborhood) morphs from can we survive? to can I live with that will have to be done to survive?

The final book in Walters’ realistically-possible dystopian trilogy is filled with tension from start to finish.  The characters are worn down by the hardships they have had to endure, but the world only seems to push more evil in their direction.  Adam’s struggle with right and wrong are very honest and it requires the reader to weigh the options for themselves.  The action is full and described in lavish details to place the reader in the center of the fight.  There is a bit of gore in the story, but it is not described in a glorified manner, just a realistic representation of the gravity the fights for survival require of participants.  Will to Survive is full of page-turning momentum, but it also manages to round out the series in a satisfying way; definitely not a book to be missed.