Elusion (Elusion, #1)

by Cheryl Klam and Claudia Gabel

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

What I liked

The tech!

I loved all the technology talk! It spoke to my inner nerd. There's a lot of talk about tablets, visors, gadgets, and other elusion equipment. We get a bit of programming talk as well. If you're not a tech nerd like me, don't worry because it doesn't completely dominate the story. But the tech speak does pop in and out at times and I looooved it!

The Escapes themselves (duh!)

I think this is a given, but the Escapes were awesome! They were so fun to imagine and read about. They're basically like virtual realities, which kind of brought back fond memories of Insignia by S.J. Kincaid.

The story: with evil corporations!

I have a thing for evil corporations in literature. I have no idea why, I just do. I like it when there's a big company, and cover-ups or evil high-up dudes.. and Elusion has all that! There are some potential problems with Elusion but the company insists there are none, but all kinds of sketchy shit is going on, and Regan is setting out to get to the bottom of it! This just totally hooked me in. I loved Regan's mission and how it was a "one girl against the big corporation" kind of thing.

What I didn't like

The pacing

The pacing of Elusion started out okay, but then it went downhill. The problem was, for 90% of the book we're told, "Something's going on!" "There's a conspiracy!" And as I said in the "evil corporations" part, I loved that! It was right up my alley. But then we're just strung along for the rest of the book with no answers until we get to the last 10%. Then we finally start getting answers.

I hate it when we don't get bits and pieces along the way. It makes me lose interest fast. I need like a little breadcrumb trail of information to keep me enticed, and Elusion didn't quite give me that. I did mostly enjoy the story and I liked all the tech and the Escapes. But around the 70% mark I started to get REALLY impatient. At that point I actually started skimming a little so I could hurry up and get to the big reveal.

The world building

The world building surrounding the CURRENT state of things was fine. I understood that there were environmental problems, people are addicted to Elusion, they use their weird card things for everything, etc. I felt like I got a good grasp on that.

What I had zero understanding of was the connection between 2013 and when the story takes place. Elusion is clearly set in the future, but there's a big gaping hole in between then and now. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?? I can make some assumptions (like we massively polluted the planet and destroyed the atmosphere), but that's all they are—assumptions. I had no clear cut idea of when Elusion took place or what happened between now and then. I hate that feeling of uncertainty. In dystopians I like being able to orient myself, but I couldn't do that here.

The romance

I didn't think the romance was horrible. It just wasn't amazing either. I almost feel like I shouldn't put it in this section, because I didn't explicitly dislike it. I just never fell in love with it.. and there's a difference!