Reviewed by sa090 on
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I was worried that this was one of those overhyped books that will eventually be a snooze fest for me but thankfully I didn’t have to face that worry again after the first few chapters. This world feels like a mix between the film Gamer, Sword Art Online and Ready Player One, way more of the first one than the latter ones though. This whole virtual reality that is interlinked with actual reality is a very fascinating subject for me and Marie Lu does one hell of a job of making it appealing, I absolutely love the fact that the Virtual Reality in Warcross isn’t a specific place to access like the Oasis or Aincrad but rather a world on top of a world, which makes both seem very large. The amount of things she can add here either through the game itself, outside of it, around the characters or new functions can be very diverse depending on where exactly she wants to go with this story.
The characters were mostly interesting, I enjoy reasonable diversity in characters and being a world wide game for example gives Marie Lu the chance to do just that which she thankfully didn’t waste. That being said, this might have also been a con in the book if I take how many characters were introduced vs how many characters were actually explored. With so many players around, it would surely create a massive roster just from them but that’s not who I was hoping I’ll get some more insight about, it was the group of close knit players we’re dealing with that Emika doesn’t really bother getting to know that well which I personally thought was a bit of a waste since Hideo is a really uninteresting character to follow with how common his type is. However, with the way the book went I’m sure/hopeful I’ll get to know more about them in the later books.
Speaking of which, I have to talk about the romance a bit here, it’s obviously nothing groundbreaking. I’ve seen this progression in so many places that I barely bat an eye anymore and while it’s not technically insta-love, it’s not that well executed either. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the thing they had going on with them working together and if we took our time from there to figure out everything then them falling for each other might have actually been something with massive basis, however the way these events went by made it seem like I skipped a few steps ahead and made it somewhat insta-lovey in the end if you will or just along the cliche realms of this setting. On one hand I can say that it’s because of the emotional state of one of the characters but on the other hand it doesn’t really feel like it resulted from a felt progression to me. I also really disliked Emika’s initial interactions with him, trying to emphasize your self worth only to completely forget about it the next time you meet feels like an unnecessary hassle.
The mystery that we follow in this series was fun to figure out, and despite me figuring out the “bigger threat” very early in the book and their intended “threat” at the end of the pajama scene, it was still nice to see her usage of the red herring in Warcross. I’m not going into spoiler territory but I have to give props to Marie Lu for always bringing in new elements and events that make the earlier conclusions seem shaky and forcing me to think of new ways to solve this. Like I said though, figuring out identities wasn’t difficult for me with the information provided. However, motives remain an illusive part of the book so far which is understandable given that it’s the first in a series.
This was the first book I ever read by Marie Lu so I’m really glad that it ended up as a pleasant experience, despite my tiny issues with the book; it was a gripping and fast paced book that I enjoyed reading a lot.
Final rating: 4/5
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 1 November, 2017: Finished reading
- 1 November, 2017: Reviewed