Hello everyone!
I am back with another book review, today it is Warcross by Marie Lu. Thanks so much to Penguin Random House for sending me an ARC of this book for an honest review, as always all opinions are my own.
The story follows 18-year-old Emika, a girl who is 72 hours away from being evicted from her shoe-box of an apartment in NYC. When her latest bounty hunting mission goes awry, she finds herself desperate. Desperate enough to hack into the global game that is sweeping the nation, Warcross. If she can just steal a power-up, she'll sell and make rent. Except it seems her hacking skills are too good, and she finds herself in the game, completely visible to the players and audience. Next thing Emika knows, she's getting calls from the game's creator, Hideo, to come to Tokyo and work for him.
While this book has similarities to Ready Player One, there are also differences. For me personally, the major difference is the writing style of this book. In both of Cline's novels I've read (well, I DNF'd Armada), I found it hard to read. I'm not quite sure what it is about his writing style that doesn't work for me, but there is some aspect there. But with Lu's novel, I knew if nothing else, I could count on it to be extremely well-written. I flew through the story, I read it in one sitting.
Lu did a good job of explaining the world of Warcross, how it worked and why it was so popular without making it boring. That's another aspect I don't really like about sci-fi: usually, they spend a ton of time poorly explaining how things work and you end up more confused than anything. Lu makes it easy to understand while still explaining all the elements needed to comprehend the story itself.
Of course, what is a Lu novel without a little touch of romance. At this point in the game (pardon the pun), I think we've all read enough YA books to know that when we have two characters around the same age, they're going to have a romantic connection. And in true Lu style, she does a great job of the slow-burn romance. This is perfect for this storyline because the focus isn't supposed to be on the romance, it's supposed to be on the game and the bugs with it.
The only real reason I can't give this one a full five stars was because I figured out who Zero was way too early on. I'm not sure if Lu purposely made it easy to guess but as soon as one detail about Hideo's life was revealed, I knew. However, here is another twist regarding Hideo that I definitely did not guess, which looking back makes sense, but I had no idea it was coming. This twist, for me, saved me from completely predicting the ending of the book.
Overall, if you are hesitant on this one, pick it up, I bet you will enjoy it!