Author: Wick Welker
Published Date: April 17, 2022
Genre: Sci-Fi
Rating: ★★★☆☆
REVIEW
I received a copy of this from NetGalley in return for an honest review. I also specifically requested this because I've been trying to read more independently published books as well as more sci-fi between all the fantasy I've been reading. I have not read any of his previous works but this one definitely sounded intriguing at first glance.
SUMMARY
This book follows a cast of characters on a future Earth that has been ravaged by nuclear war. It begins with a bang as a robot wakes up in a garbage pile with the main goal to find someone. He teams up with two girls who spend their day collecting garbage to trade for food in the desolate world. There is another girl present who has a mysterious power and origin. The third POV is a boy who lives underground, raised to believe his civilization is thriving while the aboveground is dead.
It is difficult to give a full synopsis of this book without giving anything away. It is a rather complicated plot in an even more complicated world full of cyborgs with directives and robots as well as a hunt for dark matter. It is told as a journey where we move among the POVs as they uncover what is actually happening around them.
MY THOUGHTS
I have very mixed feeling about this book. While the plot(s) were intriguing and held my attention individually, I thought that when it did switch perspectives, that it was done in a way that pulled me out of of the book. I really enjoyed the beginning as it was one of the more gripping first few chapters that I've read in a while. I was immediately pulled into the world and wondering how the Earth to the conditions described. I really enjoyed getting to know Beetro, Lucinda, and Miree, but that definitely changed a few chapters in. Who I thought was going to be the main character was not, and Miree, who was set up as a side character became one of the main focuses of the whole book.
There was another story arc that followed Arym, who lives underground and is told that his civilization is the last on Earth because the surface is not livable. It was reminiscent of some older YA novels that I've read before and this particular arc did not feel completely original, nor did I really enjoy where Arym's story went. I found his chapters very slow and hard to get into compared to Miree's.
Another one I did enjoy was Ribcage's, who lived in the same town as Lucinda and Miree. She has a very strange power and, in my opinion, it didn't altogether fit in with the cyborg and robot world that I was picturing.
Overall, this book felt like it needed editing. It was so long and parts felt unnecessary. It took me way longer than I expected to get through because I kept putting it down as it lost my interest. I felt like scenes either needed to be cut or it should have been split up into two books.
Now, Miree I really liked. I love a good morally grey character and I felt like her motives were completely true to the character that was built. She was by far my favorite point of view to read from and I do wish we got more. I also like Ribcage. She was interesting and I really wanted to understand he backstory more than I did. It was almost like she didn't realize that her life was as terrible as it was and she did half of the things just for fun. She was both childlike and utterly ruthless.
Beetro was also a completely cool character. It was very interesting to read from the perspective of a robot that was, in a way, learning the morals of a human. I won't spoil it, but he definitely goes through a transformation that I liked.
The writing to me was just ok. I wasn't blown away by the storytelling but I also didn't hate it. I sometimes have trouble reading sci-fi such as this because some of the concepts I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Overall, this was a solid start to a series that ended in quiet the cliffhanger. I'm not sure it was enough for me to continue but I may pick it up just to see if it goes in the direction I want it to.
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