Thursday, August 30, 2018

Reboot

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.

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