Reboot by Amy Tintera 365 pages
Seventeen-year-old Wren rises from the dead as a Reboot and is trained as an elite crime-fighting soldier until she is given an order she refuses to follow
I’ve had this book on my to-read list for a while and now
that I have a small fr
iend group book club, I’ve finally found the chance to do
so and I’m glad I did. This book was a fun, action-packed read that is full of
things I love: a bad-ass female main character, science-fiction/future setting,
and an intriguing storyline.
That being said, I wasn’t wowed by this book. It was
certainly enjoyable, but it had a few bits here and there that made this just a
middle grade rating for me:
For one, I felt the romance was a bit rushed and sort of
took over Wren’s bad-ass character style. I felt like she started the book as
yes, a bit of a hard-to-like character, what with her enjoyment of chasing down
humans and fighting them, incarcerating them, and/or killing them. But, I gave
her leeway because she has been trained to do so since she was 12, an
impressionable age. I like that she started breaking out of this shell once she
meets Callum and realizes that she does have the capability to feel things
(when up until this point she’s thought of herself as next-to being like a
robot). I like that he helps her discover new things about herself, but I
dislike that he so quickly falls for her (basically insta-love on his part) and
that they go from begrudgingly friends to romantically involved. Suddenly Wren
goes from being really in control of situations to being like most typical YA
main characters: the boy becomes their whole center of being, from which the
orient themselves and they suddenly become the incapable one in the
relationship.
The only thing that saves it from being a total loss is that
Wren is still mostly capable in the physical department: she is stronger (yes,
partly because of her Reboot number), better equipped to save the day (and
often is saving Callum’s butt), and she is often the one emotionally supporting
Callum. I am glad that, though they are given an opportunity within the book,
that Wren and Callum do not have sex (mostly because Callum would like for Wren
to be more enthusiastic/on-board with it when the do). Many YA books these days
seem to insist on having young, teenage couples have at least one sex-scene.
While both Wren and Callum are virgins (and it’s stated in the book that
Reboots frequently have intimate relations in the HARC facility), they know
enough that they could do it, but choose not to. It’s a bit refreshing and it
also gives them more time to get to know each other better and solidify their
relationship (even though the both are clearly ready to throw their lives away
for it – which was one of my issues with this couple).
I understand, when writing a YA romance, especially with
teens, that things move quickly. Wren and Callum, however, seem to develop a
bit of the Romeo/Juliet thing, more so on Wren’s side, where they don’t want a
plan B in case one of them dies. Wren doesn’t want to think about any scenario
in which Callum might die because if he does, their plans suddenly become
pointless to her, as if her life will have no meaning after. I understand that
Callum is the catalyst in her becoming more human and less robot-like, but it’s
still irksome to see.
That brings me to my main issue with this book: Callum’s
love for Wren is the main reason that Wren decides to break free of her bonds
and escape. A relationship is the reason that the rest of the book becomes
necessary because if she didn’t feel things for Callum and knew that he felt
things for her, she never would have wanted to escape, would have continued
living her life as a HARC slave. It’s disappointing, because Wren seems so
awesome and competent, but I understand that Tintera is attempting to use her
age and the length of her stay at HARC as the reason why Wren would never
leave. But I say – write her character differently, then. I don’t like that she
needs a love interest to be the reason for her to want to escape.
Right, so the good bits:
I like this world that Tintera has built: a sort-of
post-apocalyptic United States, or more specifically Texas. Characters often
refer to some Reboot vs. human war, which ended up destroying most things and
which is the main reason why HARC exists. It sounds like an epic story and I
enjoyed getting to read about this new United States, where children who get
this disease KDH then come back as a weird kind of high-functioning zombie when
they die. The whole minutes dead = how skilled a zombie you are is quite
interesting.
I also quite like the tension between humans and Reboots –
that most families are horrified by/don’t want to be around their undead
children, that most humans are terrified of Reboots (mostly because of lies
that HARC has fed the populace). I like the big bad company HARC and how it
manipulates both the Reboots (telling them minimal information so they can use
them as basically slaves that then further enforce their enslavement) and
humans to be mistrustful of each other. If I end up reading the second one, I
hope Tintera includes a plot of humans and Reboots breaking that cycle and
learning to live alongside each other. In fact, I hope that’s one of the main
plot points. I like that there are human rebels (yay, rebels!) who believe in a
different world and attempt to rescue Reboots and take down HARC. I’m always in
for a good underdog story.
All in all, the world is well built, the characters are
pretty solid. Aside from me ragging on Callum’s and Wren’s relationship, I
think Callum is a pretty cool dude (maybe a bit too good to be true), likable,
kind, and super not into killing (like, my level not-into-killing, as in, I’d
rather die than kill someone else not-into-killing). I think he and Wren
balance each other well and they’re both good for each other – Callum helps
Wren get in-touch with her feelings and Wren helps build Callum’s strength. I
liked Ever, Wren’s Reboot friend, as well. Most of the other characters are a bit
one-note, but they’re also not in the story very much.
The final conflict went a bit too well for my taste – the
puzzle pieces all fell into place nicely for Wren, which didn’t leave much room
for believability, but I still enjoyed the ride. I will probably end up reading
the next book, just to see where things go and how Wren and Callum
progress. I would recommend this to
teens looking for a good action-pact story and who like supernatural/sci-fi
elements. This book, I think, could be of interest to boys and girls, which is
a plus in its favor.
