Warcross

Typically I'm pretty lukewarm with Marie Lu. I read the Legend series and it was good. Well written, good story, great characters--but I just didn't get into it the way I do with some YA books. I listened to The Young Elites, her other series, and same thing. I'm going to finish it for sure, but I just don't feel the same way when I read it as I do when I read Victoria Aveyard or Leigh Bardugo.

I totally got into Warcross. All the way. It was fantastic! Anyone who loves computers, gaming, virtual reality, and bounty hunters will love this.

Yes, I said bounty hunters.

That's what Emika Chen is. An 18 year old bounty hunter. When her father died two years before, she didn't jave many options for survival (prostitution was one). Not that the bounty hunting gig is necessarily lucrative. She's going to be kicked out of her apartment by the end of the week if she doesn't figure out a way to pay the last three month's rent. And she's figure out a way to do it.

She's going to hack into Warcross, an international virtual reality game where teams compete against each other to attain higher levels so they can compete in the annual international competition. The power ups players earn can be sold in the real world, and the one Emika has her eye on is worth a good $50,000. But she has to hack into the most viewed competition in history to get it at the exact moment one of the players tries to hand it over. And she does! But she glitches herself into the game and EVERYONE EVERYWHERE SEES HER!

I mean, how do you get out of that?

Apparently by getting hired to play Warcross as an undercover bounty hunter. The creator of the game, Hideo Tanaka, needs someome to hunt down the person who's been breaking into his game and and changing it, leaving behind little messed up pieces of code. And he's offering $10 million to the person who does it. He thinks Emika has a good chance.

Seriously, I care nothing about gaming (as my husband can attest), virtual reality, hacking or any of that, and I still devoured this book. It was spectacularly written. Emika is so badass. Her teammates are awesome and know how to give a hard dose of the truth. Hideo is brilliant and standoffish, and thus immensely attractive. The villain is well-developed and sympathetic and multi-layered as all villains should be. The book also gives a scary glimpse into some potential dangers of technology, which is made all the scarier by how possible it is.

I was lucky enough to get this as an ARC, but it comes out this Tuesday, so you don't have to wait long for it.

City of Saints and Thieves

I was intrigued by City of Saints and Thieves because it was one of Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers selections, but it was also YA. I've never seen a Teen book make this list.

The story follows Christina aka Tina aka Tiny Girl aka Tiny. Tina is an excellent thief. She has to be; it was the only way to avoid becoming a prostitute on the streets of Sangui City. She works with the Goondas, a street gang in the city, to make her living--and work toward taking revenge on the man who killed her mother.

When her mother first brought Tina to Kenya from Congo, she found a job as a maid for Roland Greyhill, an American businessman. There, she spends five (7? Can't remember) easy years of childhood, plays with Greyhill's son, Michael, and gets a new sister. But everything changes when her mother is murdered. Tina, 12 years old, takes her sister and flees to the streets because she knows exactly who killed her mom: Mr. Greyhill.

Tina stashes her sister in a nun-run school where she was able to get a scholarship, then goes to the head of the Goondas for help in taking revenge. She wants to kill Mr. Greyhill. But he has other ideas--among them taking Mr. Greyhill's extensive fortune. So he gives Tina a book: The Count of Monte Cristo (and c'mon, this is my all time favorite book. How could I not love this?!) So Tina decides the best formula for revenge is: 1. Dirt. 2. Money. 3. Blood.

So when she gets a chance to break into the house to copy info from Greyhill's computer, she takes it. With a little support from computer genius Bug Boy, she gets all the info she needs tot ake Greyhill down.

She also gets caught.

She has to spend the next week with Mr. Greyhill's son, Michael, who convinces her to try and find proof that his father did it--because Michael is positive he didn't.

This was a whole different type of mystery that was absolutely impacted by the setting. The situation is dire: Tina is beholden to this game, they're chasing down a murderer, being chased by murderers and militia. The book taking place in war-torn Africa just added a new element to what otherwise would have been a typical Nancy Drew type mystery. Tina has much greater concerns than whether her friends will betray her (she knows they will) or what clothes to wear (she lives on a roof, for goodness sake). She has to figure out how to survive on a daily basis.

And there are no happy endings like in your typical YA story. Tina doesn't fix Africa. She doesn't take down the bad guys or a corrupt government. She solves a mystery that has deeply affected her life, and then her life goes back to normal-stealing and surviving.

It was a phenomenal story, and the narrator was spectacular. I cried a few times. I can't imagine a life like many in Africa live. This is my second book recently that takes place there and deals with that violence, and it's horrifying. But I do hope more books are written (and read) about it.

The Young Elites

I read the Legend series by Marie Lu not long ago. I can't say I loved it, but it was a well-crafted and well-developed story. Marie Lu is a fantastic writer. Something about the story just didn't resonate with me. The same thing happened with The Young Elites.

The Young Elites takes place in a fantasy world where a virus tore through the country. In addition to killing a great percentage of the population, it also turned some of the survivors into malfettos: scarred individuals with special powers.

Adelina survived the virus, but she has not developed any special powers. According to her father, she is useless. Who would want a scarred, silver haired, one-eyed bride? Her father tried for years to provoke a gifted response from her, through both physical and verbal abuse. Finally, her power shows itself, and she kills him with it.

Oh, the irony!

He totally deserved it.

So she gets arrested, and then rescued during her execution. Who rescues her, you ask? Why, the young elites! They're led by Enzo, the former heir to the throne. You know, before it turned out he was a malfetto and his older sister ran him out of the city. The young elites are hoping that Adelina can help Enzo take back the throne, and ultimately make gifted individuals an accepted-rather than shunned-part of society.

Adelina was definitely an interesting main character. She had a terrible childhood, was always told she was worth nothing, had only a naive sister for company, and then suddenly finds out she has this powerful gift. So, to sum it up, she has issues.

Adelina's thoughts are dark. Not only does she hear whispers, but she also sees her dead father. He speaks to her after death and continues to tell her how unloveable she is. On the surface, she seems fairly stable, though some of the characters have their doubts. As a result of a third person omniscient narrator, so does the reader. Sometimes, when Adelina was thinking, I just wanted to scream at her! The way she thinks is not okay. She is desperately at risk of becoming the bad guy. Even though the reader can totally sympathise with why she thinks the way she does, we know it's wrong.

Ultimately, I'm absolutely going to read the next two books. And, more importantly, I'm absolutely going to read Warcross when it comes out later this year. EVERYONE is talking about it. There is so much good YA coming out this Fall!

I hope my kids can feed themselves by then... 🤔