[Review] Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Published August 16th, 2011

Random House NY

Young Adult Sci-Fi Dystopia

Premise:
In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. When Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

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Review

My thoughts: 

I really enjoyed this book. I was a 90's kid, and never really a huge fan of the 80's so a lot of the references were lost on me, but I still related a lot to the story and its characters. This book brought up a lot of cherished memories about me and my cousins as little more than toddlers playing Mario 3 on one of the first the Nintendo consoles for hours on end, on our summer vacations. It was really nice to read about people who share that similar affection and memories regarding video games.

The main character, Wade, was what everyone in high school would have called a loser, the kind of geek that is not cute, more like the annoying kind of know-it-all that would be a pain in the ass, unless you were as geeky as he is and he happened to be your friend. But he was a hero, a geeky-as-hell hero but a hero nonetheless. His values were much more significant than any other attribute he might've had, and at the end of the day that's what kept me rooting for him even when I had no idea what the hell I was reading with all the references. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a geek alright, I love video games and I've played them since I was a child, I obviously love books and novels and I'm a fan of a huge array of music and movies. I'm also extremely competitive so I could relate to those type of feelings of excitement at a new challenge and complete bliss at being able to just sit and play a game and avoid the much less forgiving reality. But even then, sometimes I felt like a was swimming in a sea of obscure references that only a true 80's born or hardcore-fan would've gotten, and I'm none of the above. 

I didn't like Art3mis that much though. She was the only one of the whole gang whom I felt never did anything significant for Wade and somehow got more spotlight than any of the other guys. She was always doubting everyone's intentions and complaining about everything, I just didn't really care for her as a character, but I really wanted Wade to be happy so I rooted for them to be together in the end just as hard anyway.

The writing was pretty good and the pace was a nice fit for this adventure-type story. The structure of the story was great, it had the three acts structure well-developed in every stage, representing each one with a video-game level and also with one of the gates/keys Wade was looking for. This story was more about the journey than the ending, since it's pretty clear from the very start how it will end. Wade had to go through numerous trials, because of the quest being the main plot line of the book and the win/defeat ratio was well balanced making the whole story much more believable and the quest itself all the more interesting.

I really enjoyed this book and I immediately recommend it to my little brother, who's a huge video games fan and also a reluctant reader, in hopes of catching his attention and finally get him to read something non-League of Legends related. No luck. When I told him about the plot I could see he was excited but all he said was "Is there a movie out yet?". Some things just never change.

Overall, this was a fantastic debut novel and now I can understand why so many people have been awaiting excitedly for Ernest Cline next book to finally see the light. I for sure will be reading Armada soon, in fact I can't barely wait!

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About the author

ERNEST CLINE has worked as a short-order cook, fish gutter, plasma donor, elitist video store clerk, and tech support drone. His primary occupation, however, has always been geeking out, and he eventually threw aside those other promising career paths to express his love of pop culture fulltime as a spoken word artist and screenwriter. His 2009 film Fanboys, much to his surprise, became a cult phenomenon. These days Ernie lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, their daughter, and a large collection of classic video games. READY PLAYER ONE is his first novel.

[Review] Alive by Scott Sigler

Alive by Scott Sigler
The Generations Trilogy #1
Published July 14th, 2015.
Del Rey.
Young Adult Sci-Fi Dystopia

Premise:
From New York Times bestselling author Scott Sigler comes something utterly new: a gripping sci-fi adventure trilogy in the vein of The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner. A group of young adults awake in a mysterious enclosed space with no knowledge of who they are or how they got there…and an indomitable young woman must lead them not only to answers but to survival.

A young woman awakes trapped in an enclosed space. She has no idea who she is or how she got there. With only her instincts to guide her, she escapes her own confinement—and finds she’s not alone. She frees the others in the room and leads them into a corridor filled with the remains of a war long past. The farther these survivors travel, the worse are the horrors they confront. And as they slowly come to understand what this prison is, they realize that the worst and strangest possibilities they could have imagined don’t even come close to the truth.

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Review

My thoughts: 

Alive is a complex dystopia. It's divided in five parts and each part brings about something new and unexpected. A bunch of children wake up in a coffin with no memory of who they are or what they're doing there. Each one of them is sure that it is their 12th birthday, but they all look to be at least 20 years old. Neither of them feels like their bodies are the sizes they should be. 

The story is told from M. Savage's point of view, in first person present, which I normally don't like much, but it works perfectly for this story. You know exactly what the characters know and you discover everything along with them. Our main character will take on the task of being the leader of this group which doesn't sit well with everyone, because if you know nothing about yourself or the ones that surround you, how do you decide who should lead? They're all perfectly blank slates with faded memories, so every new piece of information will rock their world and cause tension, conflict and fear. This is the story of their journey to the truth, to freedom and it's a hell of a bumpy road. 

The characters are really diverse in terms of personality and strengths, which makes it imperative that they all work together in order to survive. Easier said than done. The main character is strong but flawed, brave but not fearless. She has to make difficult moral and practical decisions along the way and this puts to the test our ability to relate to her. There's a lot of "right or wrong" decisions to be made and sometimes the best decision doesn't seem completely right. 

There are a lot of plot twists and turns, each moment of action is followed by a moment of calm and quiet. Rinse and repeat. That's the pace of the story. It's a roller coaster ride.
This is as much as I can tell you about the book without ruining its magic for you. You have to read it for yourself. 

For my part, I really enjoyed it even though I think some of the parts were longer than they needed to be. Overall, I think this book is definitely worth a read, for it adds a fresh perspective to the dystopian genre. 

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About the author

New York Times best-selling author Scott Sigler is the creator of fifteen novels, six novellas and dozens of short stories. His works are available from Crown Publishing and Del Rey Books.
In 2005, Scott built a large online following by releasing his audiobooks as serialized podcasts. A decade later, he still gives his stories away — for free — every Sunday at scottsigler.com. His loyal fans, who named themselves “Junkies,” have downloaded over thirty-five million individual episodes. 
Scott is the co-founder of Empty Set Entertainment, which publishes his Galactic Football League series. He lives in San Diego, CA, with his dog Reesie.

[Series Review] Lux Series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Lux #1
Published May 8th, 2012.
Entangled Teen.
Young Adult Sci-Fi / Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:

Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I’d pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring… until I spotted my hot neighbor, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something… unexpected happens. 

The hot alien living next door marks me.

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal their abilities, and Daemon’s touch has me lit up like the Vegas Strip. The only way I’m getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades. 

If I don’t kill him first, that is.

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Onyx by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Lux #2

Published August 14th, 2012.

Entangled Teen.

Young Adult Sci-Fi / Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:Being connected to Daemon Black sucks…
Thanks to his alien mojo, Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems.
Something worse than the Arum has come to town…
The Department of Defense are here. If they ever find out what Daemon can do and that we're linked, I’m a goner. So is he. And there's this new boy in school who’s got a secret of his own. He knows what’s happened to me and he can help, but to do so, I have to lie to Daemon and stay away from him. Like that's possible. Against all common sense, I'm falling for Daemon. Hard.
But then everything changes…
I’ve seen someone who shouldn’t be alive. And I have to tell Daemon, even though I know he’s never going to stop searching until he gets the truth. What happened to his brother? Who betrayed him? And what does the DOD want from them—from me?
No one is who they seem. And not everyone will survive the lies…

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Opal by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Lux #3

Published December 11th, 2012.

Entangled Teen.

Young Adult Sci-Fi / Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.
Together we’re stronger... and they know it. 

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Origin by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Lux #4

Published August 27th, 2013.

Entangled Teen.

Young Adult Sci-Fi / Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:Daemon will do anything to get Katy back.
After the successful but disastrous raid on Mount Weather, he’s facing the impossible. Katy is gone. Taken. Everything becomes about finding her. Taking out anyone who stands in his way? Done. Burning down the whole world to save her? Gladly. Exposing his alien race to the world? With pleasure.
All Katy can do is survive.
Surrounded by enemies, the only way she can come out of this is to adapt. After all, there are sides of Daedalus that don’t seem entirely crazy, but the group’s goals are frightening and the truths they speak even more disturbing. Who are the real bad guys? Daedalus? Mankind? Or the Luxen?
Together, they can face anything. 
But the most dangerous foe has been there all along, and when the truths are exposed and the lies come crumbling down, which side will Daemon and Katy be standing on? 
And will they even be together?

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Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Lux #5

Published August 5th, 2014.

Entangled Teen.

Young Adult Sci-Fi / Paranormal Fantasy

Premise:
Katy knows the world changed the night the Luxen came.
She can't believe Daemon welcomed his race or stood by as his kind threatened to obliterate every last human and hybrid on Earth. But the lines between good and bad have blurred, and love has become an emotion that could destroy her—could destroy them all.
Daemon will do anything to save those he loves, even if it means betrayal.
They must team with an unlikely enemy if there is any chance of surviving the invasion. But when it quickly becomes impossible to tell friend from foe, and the world is crumbling around them, they may lose everything— even what they cherish most—to ensure the survival of their friends…and mankind.
War has come to Earth. And no matter the outcome, the future will never be the same for those left standing.

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Review

My thoughts: 

I'm not much of an alien fan but this series was amazing! It was action-packed, sexy, funny, heart-warming and heart-breaking all at the same time. 

I loved the first installment, Obsidian. I waited a long time to start this series because, like I said, I don’t really like aliens… But a lot of people with similar taste for books had enjoyed it, so I decided to give it a chance. The books in this series are nothing flashy or wordy, they're light reads and simple. 

The main character, Katy, was very relatable to me, especially since she’s a book blogger. She goes through a lot of changes throughout the series and grows so much that it's like a whole other person comes out at the end. 

Daemon is smoking hot and he knows it. He's very snarky and comes across as rude more often than not, so I didn’t like him much at first. But along the way, we learn that he's also fiercely protective of the ones he loves and would do literally anything to keep them safe. Also, he's a freaking alien.

Deamon's sister Dee is an amazing character. She's funny, gorgeous, fashionable and really nice. She and Katy become fast friends despite her brother's worries. 

Obsidian seems to be mainly focused in the relationship growing between Katy and Daemon rather than the fact that he’s an alien. But even so, there’s a lot going on because of what he is, which adds a considerable amount of action and excitement.

We don't get to know much about the whole alien race within this first installment. We learn that there are at least two different alien races, the Luxen -the light people, like Daemon and Dee- and the Arum -the shadow and dark people. And that they hate each other. We also learn about some of the abilities the Luxen have, like healing and traveling at the speed of light. 

Onyx, the second book of the series, was my least favorite. At first, I grew so tired of Daemon and Katy being immature and not talking to each other. Also Daemon started showing a possessive side that I didn't like and I almost dropped the series. I didn't just because there still were those swoon-worthy moments and along the over-protective side of Daemon, came a sweetness to him I didn't think possible. I'm glad I didn't stop reading, because the books keep getting better and better. 

In Onyx, a midst all the drama between Katy and Daemon we find out about mutated humans, which share some of the Luxen abilities and can be really powerful. We also get to know Blake, a new guy in school who seems to have a thing for Katy. By the end of this installment, things start to go south really fast. Katy makes a lot of mistakes placing her trust on the wrong people and it all comes to bite her in the butt, leaving her and Daemon in a world of trouble.

Opal is the book of unlikely alliances, where we see a darker side of characters we thought we knew and get to know new characters. It is also the book that made me hate Blake with a burning passion. A lot of things get resolved, but new issues pop in their place. The ending left me in tears and running to get the next book. 

Origin was the book of jaw-dropping revelations and heartbreaks. A lot of deaths, mourning, true faces and action. If you think you got a big battle at the end of Opal, you're in for a freaking explosion -quite literally, in fact. This is like the battle of battles when all the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan. And the ending was ridiculous. I was screaming at the book, cursing J.L.A. for doing this to me and running again to my shelf for the next book. 

Opposition was the well-deserved closure our loved characters needed. The romance is really turned up a few notches and Daemon is more sexy than ever. The beginning of the book was really painful to read because of things that had happened to some of my favorite characters, but at the end it is all worth the struggle and the pain. I would've like that the final battle to be more epic, but it was over much too quickly and I thought the Origin's one was the best. Even then, this book was pretty awesome, the twists and turns of the plot were all over the place and you never knew what to expect, you didn't know who was going to make it and it was freaking terrifying to see all of you beloved character go and risk their lives one final time. 

Overall, this series delivered. It was full of amazing characters, action, plot twists, romance, sexiness, friendship, and heartbreak. It wasn't perfect but it was amazing anyway. I'll be checking out other series by the same author, because: Holy crap! That woman can write! She has like a gazillion other books out and more coming out soon, so I'll see you there!

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About the author

 

# 1 New York Times and International Bestselling author Jennifer lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki.

Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV. Her young adult romantic suspense novel DON’T LOOK BACK was a 2014 nominated Best in Young Adult Fiction by YALSA.

She also writes Adult and New Adult contemporary and paranormal romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.

[Review] Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither by Lauren DeStefano
The Chemical Garden #1
Published March 22nd, 2011.
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Young Adult Sci-Fi Dystopia

Premise:
By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. 

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can't bring herself to hate him as much as she'd like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband's strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

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Review

My thoughts: 

It was a good story and I enjoyed it. It's some kind of dark dystopia that I hadn't read before, somehow. 

Human race has been corrupted by scientific experiments shortening the life span to 20 years for women and 25 for men. Brides are kidnapped off the streets filled with orphans and sold to the highest bidder. Sixteen-year-old Rhine is an orphan too, but she doesn't wander the streets because she has a twin brother who mostly takes care of them both in the old family house once owned by their dead parents. 

When Rhine is taken on her way to work, she's brought to this important Governor who chooses her as his wife along with two other girls. The world is so messed up that one of them is only thirteen and is expected to bear children and be a wife as well as the oldest wife, who's eighteen. But the horrors of this dystopian world are not the worst, because inside this mansion that's Rhine new home, things even more horrible are happening, and our protagonist has just scratched the surface. 

I didn't fall in love with Rhine, because I didn't really believe her tough act. She was always saying how much she hated everything that had brought her to that awful place, but she didn't do much about it until the very end, she let herself fall for the whole illusion as she called it, more often than not, even when she kept saying that she wasn't buying into it. I really liked Jenna, the oldest wife, she was a really good friend to Rhine and she seemed to me like the strongest of the bunch. Cecily got in my nerves all the time, I just couldn't stand her. She was so stupidly naive and bratty that I just rolled my eyes every time she appeared in a scene. 

I didn't like Linden much either. He was so mild, like he couldn't formulate a whole idea by himself. He took everything as it was presented to him, without questioning anything and it made furious to witness his obliviousness. He's definitely not my type of love interest and besides that, the whole polygamy thing didn't cut it for me. There's no real romance like that. So, for me, he wasn't considered as a love interest even when Rhine let herself slip up.

Gabriel wasn't much better. I mean, he wasn't as bad at being fooled by shiny things as Linden, but he was also pretty meh. Always afraid and it just felt like he let himself be dragged around by Rhine. 

The villain in the story was kind of terrifying, this powerful man who would do anything to find a cure for the virus that's shortening the life span of his son. But sometimes, even if we're made to believe that his motives have to do with saving his son, he was just evil for the sake of being evil. 

The character that intrigued me the most, surprisingly was Rowan. I'd like to see him as a love interest, I bet he would be the bad-ass male character I kept on waiting throughout this story. 

That said, the characters weren't the best in this book. They were difficult to relate to for me. But I still enjoyed the world-building and the writing. I wish the plot would've moved faster and really developed throughout this first book, but it didn't feel like it. This one is not one of those dystopias with lots of action and big battles, and I kind of missed that, but it made it original somehow.

Overall Wither is a decent read. It's not for everyone since it contains darker topics like underage sex and kidnapping. The writing is really good but it's a slow-paced story with a lot of sitting around doing virtually nothing and few moments of real action. But it's still a good story, although I'm still not sure if I'll be reading the next two books in this trilogy

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About the author

Lauren DeStefano was born in New Haven, Connecticut and has never traveled far from the east coast. She received a BA in English from Albertus Magnus College, and has been writing since childhood. She made her authorial debut by writing on the back of children's menus at restaurants and filling up the notepads in her mom's purse. Her very first manuscript was written on a yellow legal pad with red pen, and it was about a haunted shed that ate small children.

Now that she is all grown up (for the most part), she writes fiction for young adults. Her failed career aspirations include: world's worst receptionist, coffee house barista, sympathetic tax collector, and English tutor. When she isn't writing, she's screaming obscenities at her Nintendo DS, freaking her cats out with the laser pen, or rescuing thrift store finds and reconstructing them into killer new outfits.

[Review] Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
The Lunar Chronicles #1
Published January 3rd, 2012.
Feiwel & Friends.
Young Adult Sci-Fi Fantasy.

Premise:
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

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Review

My thoughts: 

I really enjoyed this book. It was one of those book that I was really excited to read when it came out and then completely forgot about it. This month, I've made it a point to pick up all of those books with amazing reviews that I've meaning to read for a while and hadn't, and I'm really glad I gave Cinder a spot on that list.

At first, it confused me a lot with all the cyborg-android terminology, making me want to skip all the description parts where the technology was overly abundant. But after a while I really got into the story and got used to the weird terminology. 

I thought it was a really cool concept, an unexplored and new take on the classic fairytale. I loved the few alterations at the mainframe of the story, like Cinder having only one terrible stepsister and Peony (the other step-sister) being a much needed friend to Cinder. I love Peony as a character, she was funny, naive and completely adorable. Also I really enjoyed the parts where Iko was blabbering on about Prince Kai, that android was the best!

I loved the way those two characters changed the original fairytale. I think it would've been unbearable for me to read again the whole sad story with Cinder not having anyone on her side. 

Prince Kai was a hottie, for sure. But I wished we could've gotten more insight to him. Don't get me wrong, I loved the whole politics involved, and understood the whole "being a prince" deal, but I also think that there was more to him than just that and would've liked to see his character in more normal situations. I think my favorite moments of him were when there was just Cinder and him, because then he'd let himself just be, and I could glimpse at the person and not the prince.

As I said before, the politics play a huge role in this book. There's another race beside the humans, the Lunar people ruled by a cold and evil queen, who's trying to take over the Earth and doesn't care what or who she has to destroy in her way. Queen Levana was a complete b*tch. There was no redeeming quality about her. She was evil to the core and nothing else. I just hated her guts. 

I hated the ending... It was really unsatisfying, after all that I had to go through to see it happen... All the angst and the sadness and the revelations, everything seemed to fit into place and then boom! it's over, see you next time... I was like "WTF! Where is the rest of the book? Surely there's about fifty pages left explaining how everything went down..." But no... that was it and I don't really know how the next books in this series are related to this first installment, but I thought they were supposed to follow completely different characters in the same world, with their own stories. But if I don't get some closure and get to know what the hell happened after this book ended I'm going to throw a fit like nobody's business, I'm telling you...

Overall, I thought this was a great book; surprisingly innovative, funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. I'd recommend it to anyone who like futuristic reads.

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About the author

Marissa Meyer is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Lunar Chronicles. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and three demanding cats. She’s a fan of most things geeky (Sailor Moon, Firefly, any occasion that requires a costume), and has been in love with fairy tales since she was a child. She may or may not be a cyborg.

[Review] Eve & Adam by Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate

Eve & Adam by Michael Grand and Katherine Applegate
Eve & Adam #1
Published October 2nd, 2012
Feiwel & Friends.
Young Adult Science Fiction

Premise:

And girl created boy...

In the beginning, there was an apple—

And then there was a car crash, a horrible injury, and a hospital. But before Evening Spiker’s head clears a strange boy named Solo is rushing her to her mother’s research facility. There, under the best care available, Eve is left alone to heal.

Just when Eve thinks she will die—not from her injuries, but from boredom—her mother gives her a special project: Create the perfect boy.

Using an amazingly detailed simulation, Eve starts building a boy from the ground up. Eve is creating Adam. And he will be just perfect... won’t he?

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Review

My thoughts: 

Eve and Adam in an entertaining and fast-paced sci-fi read. I loved the concept, although the writing was a bit weird. I suppose it has something to do with there being two authors involved.

Evening is the daughter of one of the most influential women, Terra Spiker, the owner of a huge bio-pharmaceutical corporation, so when she’s hit by a car it doesn’t seem that strange that her mother storms into the hospital where she’s been tended wanting her to be transferred to the Spiker’s facilities to be treated by the best doctors she has at her disposal. While she recovers, her mother gives her a project to keep her occupied; she has to design a perfect human being with a new DNA simulator. What Evening doesn’t know is that underneath those seemingly understandable little actions, there’s a whole universe of secrets and lies hidden. Here’s where Solo comes in play, he’s known some of these secrets for a long time and he’s ready for the rest of the world to know about them too. What he didn’t know was the huge role Eve would play in uncovering the truth.

I liked this book; it was a really fun read, action-packed and fast-paced, so I was able to finish it in one sitting. 

The characters are a little underdeveloped, but I guess it is fine for a short book. The most interesting of them was Terra. She’s like an ice-queen, really powerful and god-like, such a strong character and full of surprises. 

I felt “meh” about Eve, I mean she was okay but most of her great qualities were a reflection of her mother’s. 

Solo, the other main character wasn’t my cup of tea either. He seems to be really smart but some of his behavior was kind of erratic. [SPOILER:  I mean, when he just ran over one of the drug-dealer guys, without a care in the world and there’s no explaining about it. I'm not saying the drug-dealer was a nice guy, but he was a person nonetheless] (Select text to see).

The plot was okay, but there were a lot of coincidences [SPOILER: The way Eve and Solo seem to run into each other with perfect timing. How perfect it was that even under terrible pressure Eve manages to remember the elevator code which we had never seen her using before. Convenient how Solo gets access to Tommy’s computer, when most paranoid scientists wouldn’t have left their computer unattended, much less if they have the kind of information Tommy did. How Solo manages to enter the firm to access a computer and somehow nobody notices] (Select text to see) which made me roll my eyes a couple of times.

Also, I was okay with the relationship between Eve and Solo for the most part [SPOILER: Until, out of the blue, within two weeks of knowing each other, we get Solo’s point of view and he’s all “I’m in love with Evening”… Insta-love much?] (Select text to see). But whatever, for me their romance wasn’t even the main subject of the story so I didn’t spend much time thinking about it.

Overall, Eve and Adam is a good, fast, sci-fi read. It’s far from perfect, but it’ll do. 

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About the authors

Michael Grant is an American author of young adult fiction. He has written over 150 books, though most are as a co-author with his wife. Together they have written the Animorphs and the Everworld book series, as well as the Making Out book series.  Katherine Alice Applegate is an American writer, best known as the author of the Animorphs, Remnants, Everworld and other book series. She won the 2013 Newbery Medal for her children's novel The One and Only Ivan.