Speaker for the Dead: Book 2 of the Ender Saga

While it took me some time to get into the book, I was rewarded with a really interesting story and the most perfect ending. The book deals with a grown Ender getting involved with two central conflicts, one with a broken family dealing with its trauma and one about human and alien contact and communication. Both are multilayered and involve fascinating and unique characters, plus we also get to see how Ender has dealt with, and in some way is still struggling with, his own past. However, apart from him being our main character, this doesn’t really feel like a sequel to Enders Game. It is a totally different book, be it regarding the story, the pacing, the way emotions are conveyed… While for me Enders Game was the more powerful book by far, I don’t mind going in a different direction here. The beginning was incredibly slow and I felt a slight detachment throughout most of the book, but apart from that it´s just a really good book on its own that doesn’t necessarily need to be a sequel.