Doomed

by Tracy Deebs

[bookishzelda]

My first impression of this book was, wow this would be a good movie. I really love this kind of adrenaline pumping suspense that comes with a reading something like this. Tracey Deebs made me think…. a lot. Sometimes I will read too many dystopia novels and find myself telling my husband that we would be totally unprepared for a zombie apocalypse. This was one of those kinds of books. I read so many Dystopia novels that are about the aftermath of the world going haywire and you really don’t have a clear explanation about how things got to be that way. It was a plague or something along those lines. This book has us experience the world falling apart in a completely plausible way. Which is what became so unnerving about it to me. I grew up with only land lines and no internet; I had to use a phone book and pay phone to make calls. Yet if the internet went out today, I don’t know if I would know what to do. It’s become such a habit and something we’ve come to rely on heavily without even realizing it. Doomed really focuses on that I think. The funny thing about this book is that I work in IT and I can tell you when the technology stops working, people honestly go crazy and claim they can’t work without it, even though they had done their jobs fine before technology.


The main character doesn’t fit into the normal role of having long hair and being so pretty she doesn’t know kind of thing. Pandora has a nose piercing and purple streaks in her red short hair. It makes it so that people judge her on her looks for a completely different reason. Like they think she might steal their wallet. She’s strong but also has a lot of weak moments where she has to slap herself out of it. She does slap herself out of it though, which makes me respect her.


Pandora ends up getting help from her neighbors, two stepbrothers name Eli and Theo. I was okay with Theo but Eli had a tendency to annoy me. I think the two brothers really balanced each other though as far as their personalities. I’m glad that Tracy explains why Theo is so skilled at so many things that a normal teenager wouldn’t be. I also really like Pandora’s best friend. I wish there was more with her character but I also think it wouldn’t have made sense.


There are some side characters that I wasn’t sure I got enough from. I would have like to have known more about Pandora’s mother and their strained relationship. Also why she told Pandora her father was evil. I also thought the FBI part of it was a little strange but I’ve never tangled with the FBI so I’m not sure how things work.


The romance was natural. No real insta-love here, we find the characters thrown into an impossible situation and they have their up and downs with each other. I thought the progression was perfect, and even though there was sort of a love triangle it wasn’t the kind where you felt like a character was getting lead on. It was like how normal high school would be if you started to like one of your friends.


I would have liked a little more in the ending. I did like how some things were left to the imagination and there are many possible things that could happen to the characters in the future. I just felt like it was slightly anti-climactic on how they end up dealing with the worm and Pandora’s father.


The plot had me hooked and I found myself speeding through this book wondering what would happen next. I like the mix of thriller and mystery that was involved in it too. We have to search for clues to solve the game and of course, save the world.


On a final note, it was great to see the 1981 version of Clash of the Titans referenced. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the movie a million times myself, you can’t beat those special effects.