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A review by toggle_fow
Failsafe by Anela Deen
4.0
This story summary sounds dangerously derivative: a rebellious teenage girl sets out to topple the monstrous Skynet overlord her society has lived under for generations, and finds love along the way.
Happily, the reading experience doesn't feel like that at all. This book was good!
Sol has a voice that feels real: just the right amount of sarcasm to be interesting and distinct and seem like an actual person, without crossing over into being annoying and off-putting. Echo is a fairly standard Castiel-type good-hearted guy with powers who acts like a robot and has no idea how to be human. But like... am I a sucker for this? Maybe so.
The plot, to be fair, is a little quick and wobbly. It's never truly explained why Sol is able to dream the network, and receive the messages transmitted by the creepy scientists. It never really makes sense why, after wiping out nearly all of humanity, the Interspace chose to cover the entire world in what is essentially an Earth-sized computer chassis. Why does the Interspace need to trap humanity inside a giant computer box, so they're essentially living like little tiny cockroaches crawling over the enormous wires and computer chips? Wouldn't that be useless and counterproductive for everyone involved? The final confrontation with the Interspace herself is also just kind of: what?
Do I care about these things, though? Not really. I mean it would be nice to have all this make a little more sense, but the main thrust of the story is carried by Sol and Echo's relationship. I don't even like romance, and would vote to cut it out from nine out of ten books -- especially YA dystopias, which are constantly shoving needlessly melodramatic, bloated, emotionally vacant attempts at romance subplots down readers' throats.
Sol and Echo, though, I can get behind. There is no love triangle, there is no cheap miscommunication gag; they just genuinely come to understand and like each other. They talk about things. And yes, okay, I find the *cocks head* I do not understand your human ways, please clarify thing very endearing. I was engrossed the whole time reading about their journey through the Network, and the creepy scientists were so viscerally repulsive and terrifying that it pretty much makes up for the somewhat less-than-climactic confrontation with the Interspace.
Happily, the reading experience doesn't feel like that at all. This book was good!
Sol has a voice that feels real: just the right amount of sarcasm to be interesting and distinct and seem like an actual person, without crossing over into being annoying and off-putting. Echo is a fairly standard Castiel-type good-hearted guy with powers who acts like a robot and has no idea how to be human. But like... am I a sucker for this? Maybe so.
The plot, to be fair, is a little quick and wobbly. It's never truly explained why Sol is able to dream the network, and receive the messages transmitted by the creepy scientists. It never really makes sense why, after wiping out nearly all of humanity, the Interspace chose to cover the entire world in what is essentially an Earth-sized computer chassis. Why does the Interspace need to trap humanity inside a giant computer box, so they're essentially living like little tiny cockroaches crawling over the enormous wires and computer chips? Wouldn't that be useless and counterproductive for everyone involved? The final confrontation with the Interspace herself is also just kind of: what?
Do I care about these things, though? Not really. I mean it would be nice to have all this make a little more sense, but the main thrust of the story is carried by Sol and Echo's relationship. I don't even like romance, and would vote to cut it out from nine out of ten books -- especially YA dystopias, which are constantly shoving needlessly melodramatic, bloated, emotionally vacant attempts at romance subplots down readers' throats.
Sol and Echo, though, I can get behind. There is no love triangle, there is no cheap miscommunication gag; they just genuinely come to understand and like each other. They talk about things. And yes, okay, I find the *cocks head* I do not understand your human ways, please clarify thing very endearing. I was engrossed the whole time reading about their journey through the Network, and the creepy scientists were so viscerally repulsive and terrifying that it pretty much makes up for the somewhat less-than-climactic confrontation with the Interspace.