Blackout (Blackout, #1)

by Robison Wells

Homeland meets Marie Lu's Legend in Blackout, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Ally Condie called "a thrilling combination of Wells's trademark twists and terror. Fantastic!"

Laura and Alec are highly trained teenage terrorists. Jack and Aubrey are small-town high school students. There was no reason for their paths ever to cross.

But now a mysterious virus is spreading throughout America, infecting teenagers with impossible superpowers—and all teens are being rounded up, dragged to government testing facilities, and drafted into the army to fight terrorism.

Suddenly, Jack, Laura, Aubrey, and Alec find their lives intertwined in a complex web of deception, loyalty, and catastrophic danger—where one wrong choice could trigger an explosion that ends it all.

• ISBN10: 0062026127
• ISBN13: 9780062026125
• Publish Date: 1 October 2013
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 8 March 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 432
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.com.au/9780062026125

Reviews

[Angie]

I was very excited to read Blackout because of a widespread virus and terrorist teenagers with superpowers! That sounds like a dangerous combination, and it was, except that I have no clue why any of this is happening. Alec and Laura are part of a terrorist group and of course have some amazing abilities. They're traveling the midwest and blowing stuff up! Meanwhile, Aubrey has an ability she doesn't understand, and Jack tries to help her get away when the government crashes the school dance to take everyone away. The world is in chaos, but why?!

Blackout has a lot of great ideas here. I love tales of viruses sweeping through countries or the world. This virus has apparently gone global, but we don't learn much about it. There's a very clear explanation of why it only effects teenagers and young adults, and there's a brief mention of how it possibly got out. But beyond that, we're in the dark. Alec and Laura grew up with this virus and do mention how they got it, but how did it come about in the first place?

I also had to wonder why the terrorist group is doing what they're doing. Alec and Laura are seriously just blowing up bridges and dams. To what purpose? Terrorist must have some kind of goal and motivation no matter how outlandish, but somehow even with two of the four POVs being someone who is savvy to the goings-on of this group, the reasons are never revealed. This made it really hard for me to stay in the story and to fully care about what was going on. The lack of explanation made everything seem so random and without focus. And the ending is a cliffhanger, but I have no clue what it means! There was no context to tell me why that would even be happening or what it has to do with anything, so I was left underwhelmed.

Blackout had a lot of potential, but the lack of world-building really hurt it. I need to know why things are happening! If this had been told only from Aubrey and Jack's POV, I could understand this, it would be something that they need to figure out in order to save the world. Well, Alec and Laura know, and they're not unreliable narrators, so there's no reason why we wouldn't learn some of their background. I liked having the bad guys be narrators, but sadly, they didn't add much except unanswered questions.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Amber]

The reason I wanted to pick this book up was that I adored Variant. Robison Wells’ debut novel was action packed, engrossing, and I lost myself in the mystery. While I thought Feedback, the sequel, fell totally flat at the end, I was thrilled to find out that Wells had another YA novel coming out this year. Even better, it was uploaded onto Edelweiss, so that meant I spent a good fortnight with everything crossed in the hopes that I would get approved for this. And I was! So my sacrifices to Jupiter totally worked out.

Full review on Books of Amber

[kimbacaffeinate]

Blackout is the first book in Robison Wells Blackout series. An apocalyptic book featuring young men and woman with unique abilities from mind bending to fire breathe. While I still crave more details regarding the world-building, this was an engaging novel and a series that I will continue. Three word review: unique, X-men vibe, action-packed.

The tale opens as two teens Laura and Alex attack an infrastructure in the Midwest. Then we zoom to another town where it is prom night and a young woman named Aubrey is listening to the boys talk about her. Strangely they cannot see her standing there. From a distance a young man named Jack is waiting for the prom to end, and listening about the attack on the radio. A caravan of buses and the military arrive at the prom. They begin to gather up the students, when one tried to attack, they shoot him. The tale that unfolds is fast-paced and action packed as we along with Aubrey and Jack try to determine what is happening and stop a war.

Told from multiple POV’s we get inside the minds and lives of several young adults. Laura and Alec are on an agenda involving terrorist acts, and we learn bits and pieces about their abilities and their past. They added a darker element to the tale, and I am anxious to see what drives them. While neither is likable, they are essential to the tale. Aubrey and Jack each have a unique voice and are the most fleshed out characters. They are strong, loyal and while they could at times be annoying I eventually connected. Other characters, both adult and teens help provide information about the plot, but as secondary characters we learn very little about them individually. The tale is more event driven and I am hoping we see further development with the characters.

While Blackout lacked some of the world-building I crave Wells did give us enough to keep me on edge. Throughout the books there were strange little text messages and when I finally learned what they were, I thought it was brilliant and actually went back and reread them. The way the tale unfolded regarding the superpowers, and the US governments response was terrifying but sadly plausible. I just wish, the author had fleshed out parental response and what propaganda was being used to gain citizen corporation. Wells weaves several story lines and occasionally overlaps them keeping the reader on edge with just enough information to have them craving more. There is a romance, that develops slowly out of friendship and trust, it was sweet and I am rooting for them. Wells offered up some unusual powers for these teens and while the reasons behind the attacks are vague, the world-building about the powers was captivating. I felt Wells’ description brought them to life. I enjoyed the multiple povs and really felt it worked for this story. I am hoping that book two develops the characters further and answers some questions. The tale did end with a minor cliffhanger but nothing so horrible that I was left reeling.

Fans of the X-men, Four and superheroes will find Blackout, a solid start to an exciting new series. There is a prequel called Going Dark that may shed some light.
Copy received in exchange for unbiased review and originally published @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

Blackout started out incredibly strong! I loved the characters, the mystery, and the suspense. I was completely hooked and breezed right through the first half or so.

This book felt very X-Men-esque. People start developing powers, but there are so many people who aren't aware of their powers, or are even afraid of them. Aubrey has the power to disappear. She has no idea where it came from or whether or not something is 'wrong' with her; all she knows is that she can do it.

I really liked Audrey as a character, mainly because she was flawed. At the beginning, Audrey isn't the best person. She kind of ditched her old friends in order to climb the social ladder in high school, and she now uses her powers of invisibility to shoplift (because she's really poor, so she uses it to steal school supplies, medicine, etc.). But by the end of the book, I think Audrey really changes and turns into a better person, and I love that! She really cares about doing the right thing.

Jack is also a great character. He's just a regular guy, but he's such a sweetheart! He's just one of those guys who is genuinely really, really nice. A small romance does develop between Audrey and Jack, but it was far from the center of the story. I honestly wasn't completely sold on the romance, just because there wasn't that much chemistry between Jack and Audrey, but since it was more of a minor subplot than anything else, I wasn't too bothered by it.

The big bummer for me was how long we had to wait to get any answers, and even then we only got a tiny snippet. Throughout the entire book we know there are terrorists, we know the damage they're doing, we even know who some of them are, but we have no idea what their motives are or who/what they represent. We're strung along for the entire book and then we're thrown half a bone. Because it took so darn long to get any shred of information, my interest did start to wane towards the end.

But despite that, I still enjoyed the book. It was really interesting, I was loving the X-Men feel to it, and I feel like the series is headed in a great direction! There was sort of a mini bomb dropped at the end, and I'm really curious to see how it develops in the second book!