Review: Warcross (M. Lu)
Title: Warcross
Author: Marie Lu
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Series: Warcross (Book 1)
Why?: On TBR
I loved this book SO MUCH. It was AMAZING. And then literally, 20 PAGES before the end of the book, everything was 100% ruined for me. Like it would have been a 5 star book had it not been for those 20 pages. UGH I read this book in November and it STILL bugs me.
So, for the sake of writing a review that is not 100% a rant, I'm dividing this review into two parts. Part 1 is my review excluding the last 20 pages or so (basically pretending those don't exist). Part 2 will be my rant about how much the ending killed me and why I dropped the entire book 2 stars for those 20 pages. And I'm going to try and keep my temper under control while writing it (I ranted for a good 20 minutes after reading the ending of the book so obviously I was not the biggest fan).
PART ONE: Pretending the ending doesn't exist
This book was amazing. I'm a huge fan of books exploring both sides of the whole digital era thing, especially as technology begins to become a larger and larger part of everyday life, and we become more dependent on it. And I've always had a soft spot for books that have a little mystery-type conflict thrown in there, because who doesn't like trying to guess plot twists? Seeing if you were right at the end is half of the fun.
Also, Warcross has some amazing easter eggs when it comes to the Legend trilogy. Some certain ~characters~ make an appearance (or are mentioned in passing), and I am like 95% sure that the virtual world is designed after the one that June experienced when going on a trip to [insert name of place since I honestly can't remember]. I didn't make this connection at first, but then for some reason the plant getting watered tipped me off. My brain works in weird ways.
This book had a ton of action, and I blew through it. Each scene just pulled me further and further into the story, and I had a hard time convincing myself to put it down to do things like eat dinner and write my essays. I loved the main character, I loved the story, I loved everything about this book (except maybe the romance because... romance, but that's a different story).
PART TWO: The Rant
The ending made me SO MAD. During the middle-ish of the book I had this strange nagging feeling like "what if ______?" But then I went no, that would be a super-overused trope, and the rest of this book is so original, I highly doubt that is going to occur. And then lo and behold, my prediction was correct. It just fell in the rut that so many other books fall into, and it made me so upset because the rest of this book was so good. Also, there was some slightly sketchy explaining going on at the end of the book (sketchy meaning that there were a lot of statements made that did not make ANY sense whatsoever when combined together) which left me feeling super disappointed.
I'm still probably going to read the second book, but I almost wish that this one had ended before those last 20 pages, since I totally would have given it five stars.