Reboot (Reboot, #1)

by Amy Tintera

In this fast-paced dystopian thrill ride, perfect for fans of The Hunger Games, Legend, and Divergent, a seventeen-year-old girl returns from death as a Reboot and is trained as an elite crime-fighting soldier ...until she is given an order she refuses to obey. Wren Connolly died five years ago, only to Reboot after 178 minutes. Now she is one of the deadliest Reboots around ...unlike her newest trainee, Callum 22, who is practically still human. As Wren tries to teach Callum how to be a soldier, his hopeful smile works its way past her defenses. Unfortunately, Callum's big heart also makes him a liability, and Wren is ordered to eliminate him. To save Callum, Wren will have to risk it all. Wren's captivating voice and unlikely romance with Callum will keep readers glued to the page in Amy Tintera's high-stakes alternate reality.

• ISBN10: 0062217089
• ISBN13: 9780062217080
• Publish Date: 24 April 2014 (first published 7 May 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 5 April 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperTeen
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[Ace]

Originally posted at: http://www.novelthoughts.org/review-reboot-rebel-by-amy-tintera/

I first discovered these books while working at a school – a job I only just left – a few years ago. How I found them? I saw the covers and thought they looked cool and always went ‘must read’ of course I never did while I worked there. Starting this new job requires me to spend hours (2.5) on a train each day so I ended up at the library and saw them both on the shelf so I grabbed them. I don’t regret it one bit.

The Reboot Universe is detailed, captivating and alluring in many ways. At first, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect especially with the whole ‘coming back to life’ part. Dystopia and Zombies while not new they aren’t exactly common. (List of Dystopian!Zombie books) Or at least I haven’t come across many of them. I was also afraid that this wouldn’t be well written despite the hype about it that I found on the internet. Dystopia is one of those genres I find that many people write because it’s big and sells well such as Vampires, Werewolves etc. I was therefore quite pleasantly surprised on just how quickly I got hooked on this.

Amy Tintera has done an amazing job at developing the world of this duology. From the very first page I was captivated. The level of detail and background is great. The whole dystopia and rebooting is done in a way which is believable and to me that is the most important aspect of the books. Yes it’s Dystopian and essentially has Zombies in it but it’s believable and I could truly see it happening if such a disease did exist.

The character’s and the development they went through were great too. Wren is someone who was dead for nearly three hours before coming back to life. She’s changed a lot. The book starts out with her being an emotionless killer machine but through her interactions with Callum over the course of the first book and then into the second book we see her grow and develop in a way that doesn’t leave us scratching our heads and going ‘why do that’ just for the sake of doing it. The fact that she didn’t immediately fall in love with him was great too. I was worried it was going to be incredibly cliche in that regard but was pleasantly surprised. I would have liked it to have zero romance but as a YA novel well… Romance is to be expected. Despite that it wasn’t the focus of the book which I appreciated. Sometimes you just don’t want to read a romance line when people are fighting for their lives.

Not doing it as a trilogy I think helped a lot. The books were fast paced but not too fast. If it was drawn out over three books I think it could have gotten boring so I applaud Amy for not conforming to genre ‘standards’ of doing things in threes. It was a well-made choice.

[KitsuneBae]

Original. Gross. Creative. Gory. I have a problem with the characters though. Wren is inconsistent while Callum is downright infuriating. Grrr.

[ladygrey]

This is a really solid 3.5. It's well paced and well written and kind if a prime example of YA fiction, even if it's not extraordinary.

The story opens well and even though there's a lot of world building it's threaded into the narrative pretty seamlessly. It suffers some from Dollhouse Syndrome with a very tough and emotionless heroine, which makes it difficult to connect with her. But she comes to life and the progression was natural. The story changes several times so it's not the same setting or situation constantly. The romance evolved well and isn't the entirety of the story. Again, very simply well done. Granted there were a couple of places that were repeated needlessly. I motioned for them to follow me. "Follow me," I whispered. Yeah, I got that already. But I can forgive a few flaws.

Though, as well paced as it is, the writing is probably why I never really connected to it emotionally and never really engaged with the characters. It was good in several ways, I just didn't love it.

The surprising thing, though, and I almost feel like this is a spoiler, is this is totally a zombie book! It obvious now but I didn't see that from the synopsis. It's got all the right elements from destroying their brains to flesh eating and even, literally an angry horde of townspeople. It's never a genre or subject matter I've liked before, except a friend's pilot once that was really well done. So that in itself was kind of impressive.

And I really appreciated that it didn't end on a cliffhanger. I kept waiting for that horrible moment in the last chapter where everything went wrong, but thankfully that didn't happen.

"Don’t make me punch you anymore, okay?" he whispered.
I nodded, opening my eyes. "You have to punch other people, though."

[Annie Jackson]

"Don’t make me punch you anymore, okay?" he whispered. 
I nodded, opening my eyes. "You have to punch other people, though."

[Kelly]

http://divainpyjamas.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/reboot.html

Reboot began telling the story of Wren, with no personality, no emotions. Luckily, Callum is introduced within the first few chapters and brings the story to life. From there on, it was incredibly entertaining and action packed. More dystopian than science fiction, but just enough to keep the story interesting... And no cliffhanger, as seems the standard with most young adult series' nowadays.

A dystopian young adult, with a little romance, rebellion and science fiction, I'll be eagerly awaiting the next in the series.

[Amber]

What is it with debuts this year? I've only read two that I have thoroughly enjoyed, and that happened back in January. It's been a long three months, and this dry spell isn't showing any hint of stopping soon. Reboot is another one of those average reads that have been surrounding me this year. I'm pretty sure I'm cursed.

I think that Reboot could have been improved in a few easy (says the person who can't even complete a NaNo novel) ways, so let me tell you about those.

Full review on Books of Amber

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

I was a bit nervous about Reboot at first. Well, first I was excited. Then reviews started trickling in, talking about how it was a new take on zombies, and then I got nervous. I'm not usually a big fan of zombie books... But I'm pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Reboot, zombies and all! The zombie aspect wasn't my absolute favourite part of the book, but it was subtle enough and different enough to maintain my interest.

The world building was about half good and half 'meh'. We didn't get the clearest picture of how things came to be (where the virus came from, exactly what happened when Reboots started showing up, how the HARC came into power, etc.). However, I think Amy Tintera did a great job building up the current state of the world. I could clearly picture the humans' fear of Reboots, and the state of the slums vs. the rich parts of the city, etc.

Wren has a really interest progression throughout the book. I don't know if she was supposed to start out 100% unemotional—because she wasn't—but she did start out with mostly no emotions. But as the book progressed and as she spent more time with Callum, her emotions slowly poured out. But the neat thing was, I think they were there all along, they just needed a little coaxing. Now, I didn't realize this in the moment—only after I finished the book and was reflecting, but I kind of preferred the "before" version of Wren more. I liked her scary, kickass, "I'll kill anyone and I don't care" attitude. She was quite menacing and I kind of enjoyed that almost robotic, ruthless killing machine attitude. But as her emotions started pouring in, they started to cloud her judgement, make her think twice, etc. It made me miss the old Wren a little bit.

As alluded to in the synopsis, there is a romance in Reboot and it kind of lines up with Wren's newfound emotions. The more the romance grew, the more emotions Wren displayed. I enjoyed the romance, but I think there will definitely be some people who will enjoy the book less because of it. The romance isn't really a side plot, instead, I'd say it's the thing that drives most of the plot and the character development. Callum's presence is the main thing that trigger's Wren's emotional development, and her feelings for him are what cause her to take the actions she does. If that doesn't bother you, then you might enjoy the romance! It's sweet, slow-developing, and tender. There are plenty of romantic moments, and plenty of awkward "first love" moments as well.

I think the end of Reboot was by far the best part of the book. Things really intensified, leaving us with an extremely satisfying ending. There is a big, monumental event, which seriously had me whooping and cheering, and everything gets completely resolved. There's absolutely no cliffhanger. I can certainly see where the rest of the series is headed, but I love that everything got so neatly wrapped up. It made Reboot feel like a complete and contained book, which is what it should be.