The Last of Us Season 2 finale: Which book is Abby reading at the end?

The Last of Us Season 2 is over, and the series finale left us with more questions than answers.

But along with wondering whether or not Ellie (Bella Ramsey) will survive, or what Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her crew were planning before they got interrupted, there's also a much smaller mystery: Given that The Last of Us is a show filled with Easter eggs, what's the deal with the book Abby is reading in the flashback at the very end?

What book is Abby reading at the end of the finale?

After the dramatic cliffhanger in the present day we rewind three days earlier to "Seattle: Day One", where Abby is lying on a sofa in the Washington Liberation Front (WLF) base with an open book on her chest.

The title of this book is Thieves of the City by Ben Davidoff. A quick Google shows that it isn't a real book, but there is a very similar title out there: City of Thieves by David Benioff (yep, one of the Game of Thrones showrunners), a coming-of-age historical fiction book published in 2008.

What's the meaning behind Abby's book?

Fortunately, the answer to this one has already been provided by the game's creator, Neil Druckmann, when he was asked about his inspiration for The Last of Us game back in 2013.

"There’s a book called City of Thieves, which is historical fiction," Druckmann told VentureBeat. "It explores the journey of these two survivors in Leningrad during World War II, while the city was under siege. They’re going to look for food and they run into cannibals and all these other horrible people, but there’s still humor in it. These two characters who hate each other form a bond. That was handled very well."

The book was even included in the second game, The Last of Us Part II, with Abby seen reading it in a very similar scene to the one shown in the Season 2 finale. The only difference? They tweaked the title and the author name ever so slightly.

New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and HBO Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.

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