Warcross by Marie Lu
Rating: 3.5 stars
Emika is a penniless, orphaned bounty hunter. Days away from being evicted from her apartment, she desperately hacks her way into a worldwide virtual reality game called Warcross and is instantly famous. She is immediately whisked away to Tokyo to meet with Hideo, the billionaire creator of Warcross who inspired her to make something of herself when her dad died seven years earlier. Hideo asks Emika to join the Warcross games with the additional duty of finding out who else has been hacking into their elaborate security systems. She is recruited to a team with members she does not fully trust. She struggles to learn how to work in that team, while also having feelings for Hideo.
Much of this book takes place in a virtual world. In that regard, it’s very similar to Ready Player One. Which really isn’t my genre. Lu does it well, but I also read through the intricately laid out scenes wishing it’s something I could just see on a screen, instead of trying to visualize everything. When people are constantly seeing each other and interacting through virtual reality, I can never stop thinking about what’s going on with their real life bodies in the meantime. At any rate, this also comes across as a bit of a dystopian novel, which I do like reading about. It was all done very well, and ends with a little twist that leaves you hanging for the second book.
Overall, I’d recommend this book to anybody who enjoys young adult dystopian/sci-fi fiction. The storyline is interesting and the characters are intriguing. I like how Emika’s teammates come through to help her in the end, even though she wasn’t much of a team player herself before that point. I like seeing her learn to trust people, despite how hard her childhood has been. I greatly look forward to the sequel coming next year to get some closure on where the characters are left at the end of Warcross.
