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Book Review: Androne

Rating: 1 star

In one terrifying event called the Ninety-Nine, all major military installations on earth were eviscerated. But by whom? Foreign powers, AIs, ETs? Every conceivable adversary was ruled out. Reeling from massive casualties and amid hundreds of conspiracy theories, humanity creates Andrones: bipedal android drones piloted remotely by soldiers who will never again need to be on the field of battle. Newly minted Androne pilot Sergeant Paxton Arés has now been deployed into a fight against an enemy no one understands or has ever seen.

Passing mostly uneventful days patrolling an unidentified desert, Paxton spends time communicating with his pregnant girlfriend back home and reflecting on his impending fatherhood. But as he is drawn deeper into military camaraderie and begins quickly rising up the ranks on the strength of his father’s military legacy, Paxton starts to question the swirling rumors about the nature of the conflict. What he’s encountered in the shifting dunes—something inexplicable, indomitable—fills him with the fear that whatever is out there is destined to win.

Whether it’s curiosity, ambition, or a newfound paternal instinct, Paxton has a driving need to understand the dangerous truths of this strange, invisible war. And the choices he must make have the power to change everything.

So to be honest here, Androne is a read I wasn’t able to finish. I’d gotten about one-hundred pages away from completing it when I decided I could no longer trek through this book. Since I hadn’t finished it, I was unsure whether I should review it or not. But I figured why not talk about this book so I can explain why I couldn’t complete it?

So to start off, what caught my attention about this book and made me want to read it to begin with was the description of the plot. You have a story that takes place after a huge event called the Ninety-Nine that affected everyone around the world. You also have the military who has soldiers trained to pilot andrones whose mission is to go out and find out who caused this major event to take place. Basically, the premise of this book sounded interesting enough to me to want to give it a read. I loved the idea of military personnel no longer having to go out in the field but using andrones in battle. It was a science fiction scenario that sounded promising to me and that I felt like would hold a lot of amazing possibilities.

And it started off intriguing enough for me to continue reading to see what would happen next. But as I continued reading Androne, I found myself starting to lose interest in what I was reading. It didn’t help that the main character of the story Paxton is one of the most boring characters I’ve encountered in science fiction but also didn’t particularly care for any of the other characters in this book either. I feel like as a reader, this made this book even harder for me to read because I didn’t care for anyone in the story, so I felt like I was just continuing to read this book for the plot.

But there were issues with the plot in this book too. In particular, when as a reader you do find out the truth behind the cause of the Ninety-Nine, it doesn’t make any sense. At all. If anything, it’s the leading cause of the issues this book had for me that resulted in me deciding not to finish it. Because Paxton gets told by one of his superiors who the enemy is here. He doesn’t pilot his androne and discover the truth on his own or do anything at all that warrants him finding out the truth on his own. Nope, someone he works with knows who they’re fighting and decides to tell him even though she doesn’t have the authority to do so. There’s also no real explanation given either as to how they discovered who the enemy is or anything. And somehow Paxton is involved in it too besides being told the truth and that doesn’t get explained here either. This all annoyed me and made this book difficult for me to continue with because I felt like there needed to be an explanation for what was going on instead of the story progressing the way it did.

I had such a difficult time reading this book that every time I was looking to read, I was contemplating back and forth between whether I wanted to continue reading this or not. Until I decided I gave as much time trying to read this book that I could give and want to read something else instead that won’t make me feel the way this book did anytime I wanted to pick it back up. Overall, Androne sounded like an interesting book to me, but I just got to a point where I couldn’t continue with it anymore as I’ve gotten to the point with it where I just don’t care anymore what happens.

Don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have any books recently that you haven’t finished that you’d like to talk about as I’m curious to see what books others have read that they couldn’t complete.

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OnlineBookClub.org Book Review: Escape (30th Century Trilogy #1)

Rating: 3 stars

https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=85188

Like with my last OnlineBookClub review, I’d really appreciate it if you shared this one too.

Thank you very much, and happy reading!

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Book Review: Redemption (MILA 2.0 #3)

Redemption Book Cover

Rating: 4 stars

Mila has been running for her life for so long. But there might be nowhere left for her to go. Especially now that she’s an incredible danger to herself and anyone who dares get close to her.

That’s why Mila has gone into hiding with friend and tech expert Lucas. She can’t take the risk of hurting people worse than the way she hurt Hunter: the boy she’ll always love, the boy who might never forgive her for what she’s done.

But then Mila discovers that General Holland—her ultimate enemy—has plans that are an even bigger threat to humanity than she is. His quest to reclaim Mila is only part of a larger mysterious endgame that will put people’s lives at stake. Mila must make a choice: either push aside her fears and fight him with everything she’s got…or turn her back on the world forever.

After getting to the end of this book, I can definitely say I enjoyed reading Redemption. While the ending itself made me want to cry, the overall direction Debra Driza takes this last book in the trilogy was really enjoyable to read. I felt like we finally got the real answers we needed as to why Sarah (the person who Mila used to be) died in the fire and found out what Holland was planning on doing next.

I found the way the story developed to be quite surprising. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but I went with it because I wanted to see where this would all end up. I also enjoyed reading about Mila’s relationship with Lucas. You could tell there was a good connection there and I really wanted to see where it’d go. While I like Hunter’s character, I found that I actually like Lucas better because he’s understood Mila since the beginning and still wants to help her find out the truth. And at this point in the story, Hunter and Mila’s relationship is pretty much dead anyway.

One of my favorite things about Redemption is the amount of detective work the characters do to find out the truth about Holland and what he’s plotting. In particular, the last half of the book where they are in the school trying to find out what’s going on with the scholarship recipient students. It’s quite an interesting plot in the story I wasn’t at all expecting because then we realize how big of a threat Holland truly is.

I also enjoyed that redemption was a big part of the story too. It came into play with Mila gaining back the trust of some of Quinn’s members of the Vita Obscura and Holland at the end of the book. Because after the events in Renegade, a lot of the characters are still weary of Mila and whether she’s really someone who can be trusted. The same is said with Holland because he is given a choice to make at the end of the story, which I feel like I can’t really get into without ruining the end of this trilogy. But it’s definitely a big choice, I can say for sure.

As the last book in this trilogy that I’ve enjoyed reading, there were still some things I didn’t quite enjoy about this one. For starters, while I enjoyed seeing a connection blossom between Mila and Lucas, I hated that the beginning of Redemption was pretty much the same as Renegade, except that Lucas is the boy with Mila instead of Hunter. But the plot pretty much starts out the same there because they both look together to try and connect Sarah’s death with Holland and to find out what he’s planning on doing next.

I also wasn’t quite fond of the way Driza decided to end this trilogy. I hated it because I felt like Mila deserved so much better after everything she’s gone through and it actually made me want to cry. But it also didn’t really tell us much either because we don’t know what happens with the other characters afterwards. Mind you, I wasn’t exactly expecting this trilogy to have a super happy ending or anything. I was expecting it to have a neat resolution though, and I feel like that didn’t really happen.

I think as a trilogy though, I think that’s one of my biggest problems with it. Because while I’ve enjoyed reading this trilogy overall, I just feel like there’s something missing in the plot. I guess the best way to describe it would be to say that it’s rushed so certain things that happen in the trilogy don’t necessarily make sense to me. The best example that comes to mind for me right now is the Vita Obscura group as a whole. From the beginning of the trilogy, the author made this group sound like it was huge with a lot of members in it. However, the only members of the group that come to help Mila out with uncovering the truth about Holland are the ones she interacts with in Renegade. Then, there’s everything that happens with Holland in general that’s full of plot holes. I know that Mila as an android is supposed to be a secretive military operation that not too many people are supposed to know about. But besides Holland, Quinn, Nicole and Daniel, there weren’t too many other key players who knew about Mila. To me though, that just seemed too convenient because I feel like more people would’ve played a part in Mila’s creation, therefore they’d be playing a big part in the story.

And that’s one of my biggest problems with this trilogy. The story being told overall is unique, amazing and everything I want to read in a science fiction, young adult story. But there’s just so much with the plot that doesn’t add up, isn’t fully explained that makes it hard to wrap your head around and accept what’s been told to you.

However, I still enjoyed reading this trilogy and was sad to see it come to an end, even if the ending isn’t at all what I wanted for Mila. It left me feeling emotionally sad to be done with these books, but also looking forward to whatever book I decide to read next.

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Book Review: Renegade (MILA 2.0 #2)

Renegade Book Cover

Rating: 4 stars

There is no one left for Mila to trust. Except for a boy she barely knows.

But Hunter has no idea who—and what—Mila really is. She can’t bear to reveal her secret, even though he’s unwittingly joined her search for Richard Grady, a man who may know more details of Mila’s complicated past.

Yet the road to the truth is more dangerous than ever. With General Holland and the Vita Obscura scouring the earth for her whereabouts, Mila must rely on her newfound android abilities to protect herself and Hunter from imminent harm. Still, embracing her identity as a machine leads her to question the state of her humanity—as well as Hunter’s real motives.

While I wasn’t completely sure what to make of MILA 2.0 when I started reading it, I know for sure that I enjoyed reading Renegade immensely. It was action packed, suspenseful, and ended with me wanting to find out more. Continuing where MILA 2.0 left off, Renegade shows us the journey Mila went on with Hunter to find out more about who she really is. But in doing so, her relationship with Hunter takes a turn for the dangerous as she contemplates whether she really can trust him with the truth or not.

I enjoyed Renegade more than its predecessor because the beginning didn’t start off quite as slow. You have Hunter and Mila interacting with each other, trying to find out what they’re going to do now. While I was frustrated with Mila for not telling Hunter the truth and hated that she kept bringing it up, I was fascinated by their journey into learning more about Mila’s identity. She learned more about who she is in this book, and I felt like it really explained everything that happened up to this point in the story. It explained why she was having memory flashbacks of a life she never truly lived, but also explained why even though she’s an android she has such strong emotions. I enjoyed this book better because I felt like I understood Mila better than before.

I also found this story to be more action packed, which helped too. Because while Mila is with Hunter, she’s still on the run from General Holland so she has to be careful who she trusts. So when she finds Grady, she starts becoming weary of the person she’s traveling with. She starts questioning her decisions and comes up with a plan for what to do next. While I was annoyed that she was continuously questioning Hunter’s motives throughout, I also understood her reasoning for it. I understood because I honestly didn’t understand why she even brought Hunter into this situation to begin with. Yes, he was one of the few people she felt like she could trust in Clearwater, but she barely knew him.

I also enjoyed finally being introduced to the leader of the Vita Obscura. I like how Driza made it seem like she was trustworthy at first, though I was suspicious of her character immediately. She just seemed too nice and it made me very weary of her character. It wasn’t until we see Mila make that terrible decision that her true nature really came out. While I completely understand her part in the story, it really put a twist in the story that I never saw coming.

However, there are some criticisms I do have with Renegade that I didn’t have with MILA 2.0. For starters, while I do overall like her connection with Hunter better than before (despite it being instant love), I found it to be too convenient that his family actually has a role in the story. I also hated that he decided to just come along with her on this trip without fully questioning what was going on and why she’d reached out to him. I also didn’t really understand why she wanted him around knowing that she was putting him in serious danger. I get she really likes him, but I feel like he shouldn’t have really been given a role in this story. Or that if she did talk to him it wasn’t until later after the events that transpired. Don’t get me wrong, I really do like his character and I do understand why he’s in the story. But I don’t know, I feel like romance shouldn’t even really be in this trilogy. And there’s a possibility that this trilogy will become a love triangle, which is something else I’m truly starting to hate in young adult novels. It’s starting to become a cliché in young adult literature for the female character to have two boys fighting for her affections, and I’m really starting to hate it because it’s very unrealistic.

But anyway, enough of that. Another part of the story I didn’t particularly like is when the Vita Obscura leader’s plans are finally revealed through the decision Mila makes. I’m not going to go too much into detail about this part of the story because I want to try the best I can not to spoil it. But basically, Mila makes a decision for herself that doesn’t go particularly well. It actually results in her briefly becoming less human and more android, which in turn leads to a discovery none of us find out about until the end of the story. In this part of the story, Mila makes terrible decisions that affect the lives of others. She also briefly looses the part of herself that made me like her character in order to not deal with the hurt and pain she’s experiencing. I hate that she made this decision because while I do completely understand why she did it, I knew something bad was going to come from it. I also knew that the end result of this decision would be her character being less human and making decisions she wouldn’t make herself. While I enjoyed seeing more of her android side in this moment, I overall hated this part of the story because she did something she would’ve never done. And that frustrated me because her character has been through a lot already and I feel like she didn’t deserve this.

However, despite these two parts of the story, I overall enjoyed reading Renegade.  I enjoyed reading this book because I learned the truth about Mila’s identity, the story was more action packed and fast paced, and we finally were introduced to the Vita Obscura and found out why their leader was interested in Mila. I really can’t wait to finish reading the final book in the trilogy Redemption to find out what happens next to Mila.

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Book Review: MILA 2.0 (MILA 2.0 #1)

MILA 2.0 Book Review

Rating: 3 stars

Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past—that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do.

Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life.

When I first started reading this book, I wasn’t completely sure what to make of it. The pacing was slow, the characters you as the reader were introduced to were annoying, and the storyline didn’t flow together quite as smoothly as you’d expect. As you continue reading, however, the story gets more invigorating, the main character becomes much deeper, and the plot becomes even more intense. It’s as if Debra Driza’s writing became more focused and she knew exactly what direction she wanted to take her readers.

And for me, it worked. The story came together, started making sense and I liked what I was seeing overall. I enjoyed it because while it started off slow, I still found myself wanting to continue reading to find out what happened next. I wanted to see what happened to Mila, how she’d deal with learning the truth about herself and what she’d do next.

I gave this book a chance because my grandmother recommended it to me. And I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. What I enjoyed when reading MILO 2.0 is that it’s unlike any other book I’ve read. What I mean to say is this is the first book I’ve really read that’s focused on a character who isn’t quite human. She’s an android with unusual abilities who questions her humanity and what it means to be human. Yet, has the capacity to feel deep human emotions that makes it much more difficult for her to survive the tasks she encounters throughout the story. And I enjoyed every minute I learned more about her abilities.

What I also enjoyed when reading this book is how Mila’s character questions what it means to be human. She questions everything she’s dealing with in her life and refuses to do anything that’ll make her even less human. I like this aspect of her character because she wants to fight to be alive and free from what’ll happen to her when she’s caught.

MILA 2.0 Book Quote
Via Epic Reads.

I also like that MILO 2.0 is very action packed. As the story continues moving along, it gets even more intense with each page the reader turns. One minute, Mila is enjoying her normal life as a teenage girl. The next, she’s having to flee from those who are trying to catch her. She doesn’t completely understand what she’s running away from, just knows that if she gets caught, her life will get a whole lot worse than it was before.

However, there are a lot of things with this story I don’t completely like. For starters, the first half of the novel like I said before moved at too slow a pace. It was like Driza was struggling to write, figure out where she wanted the direction of this story to go. Everything was a complete mess that desperately needed to be changed. Especially the plot because I have a hard time believing they were found out because of an accident in a car.

Part of what made the first half of the story not as good as the rest were the characters. In particular, the girls Mila had become friends with when she moved to small town Minnesota. They were all just sort of snooty, rude, mean, not the type of people she should’ve been friends with when she moved there. I know part of the reason she was friends with them was because the leader of their group Kaylee welcomed her into the fold since she was new there, but overall, I didn’t see any other valid reasons for her to continue interacting with them, especially when Hunter came into town.

Speaking of which, I hated the instant attraction Driza made Hunter and Mila feel for each other. While I overall like Hunter’s character (what we see of it, I mean), I feel like their romance is completely rushed. They’ve only had a small amount of interactions with each other, yet they’ve almost kissed a couple times and Mila is constantly thinking about him while she’s on the run and when she gets captured. It feels like infatuation instead of love to me and I wish she’d given their interest with each other more room to grow. Or I would’ve been perfectly fine if there was no romance at all throughout the story. I know it’s in there to show that she’s capable of having human emotions, but I do feel like it doesn’t need to be there. And I don’t know, I have a feeling it could be the death of her at some point in the rest of the books to come.

However, I overall enjoyed reading MILA 2.0. Despite its flaws, it was a book unlike any other I’ve read and I can’t wait to continue reading the rest of the books in this trilogy to find out what happens next to Mila. I highly recommend this book to anyone who’s willing to push through a book to get to the juice of a story and to people who love young adult science fiction novels that center around a teenage android.

 

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Book Review: The Shotgun Arcana (Golgotha #2)

The Shotgun Arcana Book Cover

Rating: 4 stars

R.S. Belcher’s debut novel,The Six-Gun Tarot, was enthusiastically greeted by critics and readers, who praised its wildly inventive mixture of dark fantasy, steampunk, and the Wild West. Now Belcher returns to Golgotha, Nevada, a bustling frontier town that hides more than its fair share of unnatural secrets.

1870. A haven for the blessed and the damned, including a fallen angel, a mad scientist, a pirate queen, and a deputy who is kin to coyotes, Golgotha has come through many nightmarish trials, but now an army of thirty-two outlaws, lunatics, serial killers, and cannibals are converging on the town, drawn by a grisly relic that dates back to the Donner Party…and the dawn of humanity.

Sheriff Jon Highfather and his deputies already have their hands full dealing with train robbers, a mysterious series of brutal murders, and the usual outbreaks of weirdness.  But with thirty-two of the most vicious killers on Earth riding into Golgotha in just a few day’s time, the town and its people will be tested as never before—and some of them will never be the same.

The Shotgun Arcana is even more spectacularly ambitious and imaginative than The Six-Gun Tarot, and confirms R. S. Belcher’s status as a rising star.

 As someone whose reading R.S. Belcher for the first time, this book was an amazing read. Part of the reason I enjoyed it so much is because this book has an abundance of genres. Its part western, steampunk, fantasy, sci-fi, and history all in one. But it’s done in a way where you’d enjoy the story, even if one of the genres mentioned doesn’t always suit your fancy. These genres also aren’t too overwhelming in the story to where one overtakes all the others. They all flow together, make sense with how they are incorporated into the storyline.

Another thing I enjoyed about reading The Shotgun Arcana is you don’t have to read the books in this series in order and the shift in character perspectives. I’ve never read The Six-Gun Tarot, which is supposed to be the first book in this series. But I can still follow along to the storyline because you don’t need to read the first book in this series to understand the characters and events that happen. This is something I appreciate because with some book series, you have to read the books in order to understand what’s going on. But with this series, you can read the books separately and still get a good grasp on what’s happening to the characters. I also like that Belcher had each chapter covered by a different characters point of view. There are quite a lot of characters in this story, each with their own unique lives. So it was nice seeing all of these characters point of view, and seeing how their storyline connects with the overall picture.

What I also enjoyed about this book is seeing some powerful female figures in the story. All of the women in this story grew up during a time when women were still considered property, and didn’t have access to their own funds. But all of the women in this story were pretty level headed and strong, despite the way some of their male counterparts treated them. My favorite female characters in this book were Maude Stapleton and Kate Warne. I like them both because they were the fiercest characters in the book, but in different ways.  Most of Maude’s abilities involve elements of the supernatural while Kate Warne is a part of the law. But both characters used their strengths to their advantage, overcoming obstacles that made them the strong women in this book I enjoyed reading about.

I also appreciate that the story didn’t shy away from tough subject matters, like including racism through Mutt’s character. You see this in The Shotgun Arcana through the amount of disrespect some of the townspeople in Golgotha treat him despite that he’s one of the sheriffs in the town. Belcher also brings up interracial relationships with Mutt through his interest in Maude. Every time the two of them are seen talking together, people are always watching them, wanting to make comments about the two of them being together. There’s even a part in the story where Mutt and Maude go on a date and some of the townspeople see Mutt touch Maude so they want to hang him in a tree. What I appreciate about all this is that Mutt doesn’t let any of it get him down. While it’s a terrible thing for anyone to have to deal with, Mutt uses it to make himself a stronger and even better person. So while it’s a horrible thing to see in this book, I’m glad they include it because of the way Mutt handles it.

I also appreciate that this book has a lot of mythological things in it too, such as human characters who are actually angels. You see this through the characters of Biqa and Raziel, both angels in exile for different reasons. Both play a central role in the overall plot of The Shotgun Arcana, and I enjoy seeing them in this book because I find it to be an interesting element to include in the story.

The one thing I didn’t enjoy when reading this book is that I sometimes found the storyline to be a little overwhelming. Part of it was due to the back and forth between different characters. But I also feel like there’s so much going on in this book that it can be overwhelming for some to follow. The chapters that made me feel this way in particular are the ones that give background information about some of the villains who join forces with Raziel to try and take over Golgotha. While I found this information to be enlightening/useful, I also felt like these chapters added nothing to the story. All this information was useful, but I just didn’t see the point of adding these chapters when Belcher could’ve very easily mentioned this information when the characters actually came into play in the story. I felt like that would’ve definitely been a better way to handle them because I honestly forgot the information I read about them once these characters were finally introduced into the story.

But otherwise, I really enjoyed reading The Shotgun Arcana. It’s quite an interesting page turner that has a little bit of everything for those who don’t like reading books with one particular genre. But it also has enough action to get you wanting to see what happens next. I highly recommend this book, and hope to read the rest of the books in the series in the future.

 

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Book Review: Kalahari

Kalahari Book Cover

Rating: 4 stars

Deep in the Kalahari Desert, a Corpus lab protects a dangerous secret…
But what happens when that secret takes on a life of its own?

When an educational safari goes wrong, five teens find themselves stranded in the Kalahari Desert without a guide. It’s up to Sarah, the daughter of zoologists, to keep them alive and lead them to safety, calling on survival know-how from years of growing up in remote and exotic locales. Battling dehydration, starvation and the pangs of first love, she does her best to hold it together, even as their circumstances grow increasingly desperate.

But soon a terrifying encounter makes Sarah question everything she’s ever known about the natural world. A silver lion, as though made of mercury, makes a vicious, unprovoked attack on the group. After a narrow escape, they uncover the chilling truth behind the lion’s silver sheen: a highly contagious and deadly virus that threatens to ravage the entire area—and eliminate life as they know it.

In this breathtaking new novel by the acclaimed author of Origin and Vitro, Sarah and the others must not only outrun the virus, but its creators, who will stop at nothing to wipe every trace of it.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of it when I first picked it up. Not because it didn’t sound like something I’d enjoy, but due to not knowing what all was going to happen.

What I enjoyed about reading Kalahari is that it’s the third book in a series. A series where each book stands on its own without the reader having to read the previous books to get the gist of what’s going on. I really enjoyed it for this reason because it meant I didn’t have to go back and read Origin and Vitro before reading this one, though I’m most likely going to read those two books now because of it.

I also enjoyed reading this book because it takes place in a whole other world than what I’m used to. The setting takes place in the Kalahari Dessert, which is located in South Africa. It’s a place I’ve never been to and probably will never get the chance to see. But I enjoyed reading about it in this story because I felt like I was being taken to that place for a short while. It’s a fictional story, but its centered around a real place teaming with wildlife and nature. Reading a fictional book that takes place in a real world setting is something I rarely experience, but enjoy every time I do. I especially enjoyed it while reading this book.

Another reason I found this story so enjoyable was because the main characters felt so real and relatable. Even though I didn’t like all of the teenagers Sarah was stuck interacting with, I felt as if I was getting a glimpse into the way teenagers in today’s society would react if they were stuck in a dessert with little to no access to cell phones and other technologies. I found them relatable in that way, even when there carrying on and bickering got on my nerves. But I enjoyed seeing everything from Sarah’s perspective who isn’t used to dealing with human interaction because of her daily experiences in the wild.

I found the story in Kalahari to be enjoyable too. I like the idea of a deadly virus existing in the wild dessert where no one suspects it to be and a group of teenagers being the ones to stop it. I also enjoyed the story because throughout, the pacing was very climatic. I felt as if I was thrown into the action of the story, and loved every minute of it.

The one thing with this book I didn’t particularly enjoy was how neat and tight they ended the story. I felt as if everything turned out too perfectly for the characters that it was completely unrealistic. For example, I felt as if the author made the cure for the virus too easy. She made it where Sarah was able to figure out the cure on her own with a very limited amount of information. To me, that didn’t really suit the story because it made the events at the end happen a lot quicker than the rest of the book so that everything could be tied up all nice and neat. I also just didn’t like how they ended the book because I wanted to know what happened with the characters after the cure spread to the other animals that had been infected. I wanted to see more of the relationship between Sam and Sarah and wanted to know how this experience affected the rest of the group.

Despite this one issue however, I found Kalahari as a whole to be an absolute enjoyable read. I can’t wait to read the rest of the books in this series at a later date.

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Book Review: Armada

Armada Book Cover

Rating: 4 stars

Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and video games he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure.

But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe.

And then he sees the flying saucer.

Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. 

No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it.

It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar?

At once gleefully embracing and brilliantly subverting science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever read before—one whose every page is infused with the pop-culture savvy that has helped make Ready Player One a phenomenon.

Wow, I really enjoyed reading this book. I enjoyed reading it a whole lot more than I did Ready Player One.

For one, I felt like the plot of Armada was developed a whole lot better. I felt like the whole story made more sense and Ernest Cline didn’t make too many overwhelming science fiction references to the reader. I also could relate to Zack’s character on a more personal level. Like Zack, my father also hasn’t been a part of my life. While some people are fortunate and have both parents in their life, not everyone is quite so lucky and not having that figure around can impact a child’s life. For Zack, it caused him to question the world around him and made him obsessed with video games and the stuff his father left behind. But it also resulted in anger issues that could’ve developed into something more serious if it weren’t for what happened in Armada.

Besides being able to relate to Zack, I also enjoyed reading this book because I felt like the other characters were a little more developed. The reader can see this in the story with Zack’s interactions with the other recruits and the close knit relationship he has with his mother. I also appreciated that the small amount of romance in this novel wasn’t pushed. Whenever I read books with a main focus in one particular genre, I sometimes get fed up when romance is constantly forced into the story whenever it’s not really needed to make the plot move forward. While I do love reading romantic scenes, it’s not always needed. Especially in a novel like this with heavy emphasis on science fiction. So I appreciated that Cline didn’t force Zack and his love interest together and that she was more of a minor character who helped save Zack whenever he needed it.

I really enjoyed reading Armada because the story felt real. I felt like I could imagine everything that was happening to Zack in his world as he tries everything he can to save humanity. He remained focused on what he needed to do, even when things got really tough and lives were lost in the process. I also enjoyed it because I felt like I could relate to Zack’s struggle. Before the events on Armada unfold, Zack always dreamed of being whisked away on an adventure, of something happening that would take him away from his ordinary life. So he lived in his own fantasy world, spending his free time playing video games whenever he could. I often had this type of experience myself too where I wished something extraordinary would happen to me and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has. In many ways, his struggles in the world are something everyone faces, which makes him even more relatable to anyone picking up this book.

The one issue with Armada I have, however, is the ending. To me, it was very emotional and I was upset at the direction Cline decided to take the story. I knew we were going to get an explanation for why these alien beings were attacking Earth, but I found the reasoning for it to be filled with so many holes that it made me really mad. I didn’t like the way Cline decided to take it because it felt like he killed off characters that I didn’t need to be killed. I was pretty upset because he killed off one of my favorite characters in Armada and it made it difficult for me to be happy with how the story ended. I also just expected there to be a bigger explanation for why everything happened and was disappointed because I didn’t get one.

Despite this one problem though, I really enjoyed reading this book. It was just the right story for me to read and had characters I could easily relate to that I’ll definitely be rereading Armada in the years to come. I look forward to see what other works Ernest Cline will create in the years to come since I enjoyed the two novels he’s written so far.

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