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| Cover taken from the Goodreads page |
My Goodreads review can be found here.
I don't have an Amazon review because Amazon is starting to get finicky about having reviews from ARCs.
Disclaimer: I received this e-ARC for free from the author, Marisa Noelle, on behalf of the publisher Write Plan. All thoughts about this book are my own.
As per usual, anything that does not directly relate to the topic at hand will be written in this color.
Because I reviewed Crimson Ash and Her Crown of Fire, my name was on the list of reviewers for WritePlan Publishing and I was able to get an e-ARC for this. I'm really glad that I was able to read it.
First, I appreciated that the teens acted like teens without being obnoxious/immature. They know about technology and have issues that teens have, such as trying to fit in and peer pressure, but they are able to take a moment and think things through so that the maturity that teens start to show at this time is present. I've found that a lot of YA novels lean too hard into the emotional development for choices and does not touch on how they are learning how to think through possible consequences.
There was a moment between Silver and her dad that was great because it involved how each party would react (teen to parent) with technology, but wasn't overly teenage angst. The situation was realistic; though the moment wasn't more than a few sentences, it stuck out in my mind as the author could have written the moment in an overblown way. Because the moment wasn't overly dramatic, I feel that this scene set the tone for the rest of the book.
Speaking of Silver and her dad, I was happy to see that their relationship was normal but good. The relationship was normal due to it being a father and daughter and how they can argue, but they still had a good relationship where they could talk to each without the situation devolving into an emotional mess that is unnecessary and distracting from the plot.
Silver's interpersonal relationships are also well done. In YA, there is difficulty when writing the balance between when people like the MC because they're friends/MC is cool and because the MC is a Mary/Gary Sue who have people love them or hate them. The relationships that Silver has are not Mary Sue-like but are real and therefore enjoyable to read.
I really appreciated how one of the main topics (the nanite pills) was handled in relation to Silver. I won't be too specific, (#NoSpoilers) but I will say that I liked how the author handled the situation and avoided possible tropes that could be followed here.
Note: Trope are not bad in and of themselves. Sometimes one wants to read a story that follows a specific storyline with lots of tropes. That's perfectly fine. However, some YA/NA stories have a tendency to follow specific tropes and so finding variety in YA/NA is always welcomed.
I have to say that the fight scenes are really well written. It can be easy to dump information to look cool in the hopes that the reader can figure out what is going on while reading. The fight scenes were descriptive so that the reader knew what was happening, but it didn't have info dumps which would break the natural flow of the story.
I also appreciated that the (kind of) love triangle wasn't as prominent as I expected. Because this isn't a romance, a love triangle runs the risk of overshadowing the story. This triangle felt more plausible and something that would actually happen in the "real world," and therefore made a little more sense in the story.
One thing that I really, really hate in stories is characters refusing to communicate, especially when it is simply done out of spite/stupid reasons. This book had characters that actually communicated with one another. Was it all the time? No. But there was communication and that is always a good thing.
Finally, I love Matt. That is all.
Now, the start of the story is somewhat flowery and dramatic. I was somewhat concerned that the whole book was going to have this tone. I'm happy to say that the floweriness stopped around 4% (I'm not sure what that would be in page numbers) and had a more leveled tone that is less dramatic and more realistic.
I did notice that some of the training sequences' mentalities to be somewhat unrealistic and more movie-like in the mentality of how the group trains. The actual scenes themselves are written well, but at the same time the scenes had the feeling of being more cinematic than the characters actually train in a way that would save their lives. (In b4 anyone complains: Yes, as someone in their mid-twenties at the time of reading this book, I'm old as heck and not the target demographic.) I feel that this is a slight negative since most of the writing is more realistic and clear.
Finally, as happy as I am at the romance, I do have concerns that this is another case of Because the Plot Demands It. But again, I'm happy that my ship won, so there is not too much of a negative.
All in all, this is a really good story that I enjoyed reading. If you like the X-Men, I think you'll like this story.
*******
I'll be skipping March to prepare for Indie April, where I'll be reviewing 5 novellas/short stories. See you then!
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