Title: Warcross
Author: Marie Lu
Pages: 357
Genre: Young Adult, Adventure Fiction, Sports
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
It finally happened! I received an email from Goodreads letting me know that Warcross was on sale for 3$! Of course, I had to jump on this and quickly purchased it. Being excited for this new Kindle book, I put my other on hold and jumped on in.
The story begins with Emika Chen, a hacker and bounty hunter trying to pay her bills. When she accidentally glitches into the worlds biggest Warcross event, her life is thrown upside down. Traveling to Japan, Emika is greeted with an offer she can’t refuse. To get the chance to play in the Warcross games and win the bounty of a lifetime.
Oh No’s
The main character was a little too typical of a regular protagonist. Actually she was very reminiscent of Scarlett’s character in Caravel. Just a run of the mill girl who has no depth to her. Everything about herself she simply threw out in the open. Well not literally, but to the reader everything was just very predictable about her. I did love how her gameplay was but all of the hacking just seemed way too simple.
The love for all things Japanese is way too apparent. The constant mentions of just the word Japan was crazy. Although a simple book with Japan being the basis of the setting, this writing made it seem more of an obvious nerd interest. Which is confirmed by Hideo’s brother being named… Sasuke. Like, oh my goodness freaking blast me back to my old weaboo years. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Sasuke is one of the main characters in Naruto.)
Yay’s
I loved Hideo and Emika’s relationship. It didn’t feel forced at all and I really like how well they flowed. The romance was quite a nice addition to the story and every moment between them felt so natural. I loved it so much and that end is the only makes me want to get the second book
The action! The suspense! This game of Warcross was such an amazing creation. Everything can be put aside when this game was designed and created by Marie Lu. I want this game to actually exist in the world. One day, perhaps. I hope I live till then. The end was a great suspenseful fight as well . Actually I loved all of the game scenes throughout the book. I thought they were portrayed greatly and the descriptions were quite thorough. Even though the levels and positions changed every game, the goal was still understandable every time.
I definitely had an adventure reading this story. It had so much built up and it really did live up to hype. If this young adult novel peeks your interest, I suggest picking this up.
Purple Manatees 