Book stats (from Amazon):
- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (July 8 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385753063
- ISBN-13: 978-0385753067
- Amazon rating: 3.8/5 stars
- Goodreads rating: 3.85/5 stars
Summary (from Amazon):
Shay Remby arrives in Hollywood with $58 and a handmade knife, searching for her brother, Odin.
Odin’s a brilliant hacker but a bit of a loose cannon. He and a group of radical animal-rights activists hit a Singular Corp. research lab in Eugene, Oregon. The raid was a disaster, but Odin escaped with a set of highly encrypted flash drives and a post-surgical dog.
When Shay gets a frantic 3 a.m. phone call from Odin—talking about evidence of unspeakable experiments, and a ruthless corporation, and how he must hide—she’s concerned. When she gets a menacing visit from Singular’s security team, she knows: her brother’s a dead man walking.
What Singular doesn’t know—yet—is that 16-year-old Shay is every bit as ruthless as their security force, and she will burn Singular to the ground, if that’s what it takes to save her brother.
Odin’s a brilliant hacker but a bit of a loose cannon. He and a group of radical animal-rights activists hit a Singular Corp. research lab in Eugene, Oregon. The raid was a disaster, but Odin escaped with a set of highly encrypted flash drives and a post-surgical dog.
When Shay gets a frantic 3 a.m. phone call from Odin—talking about evidence of unspeakable experiments, and a ruthless corporation, and how he must hide—she’s concerned. When she gets a menacing visit from Singular’s security team, she knows: her brother’s a dead man walking.
What Singular doesn’t know—yet—is that 16-year-old Shay is every bit as ruthless as their security force, and she will burn Singular to the ground, if that’s what it takes to save her brother.
I have to admit, I love this book. I did a small review of it on my Twitter several months ago, which some of you may remember. I got this book from my mom, since she has read almost all of John Sandford's books and bought this one for me when she saw that he'd written a YA novel. That was a recommendation I'll always be grateful for because, frankly, I've read it so many times since I got it that I was shocked to read that it actually only came out last July. it seems like it's been so much longer since its release.
I think this novel is definitely suitable for the majority of the Young Adult audience, but, that being said, it is up to the reader what they're capable of handling. This book does deal with violence - it isn't particularly graphic in its description, but it's clear what's going on. I didn't find it disturbing other than the fact that some of the injuries that occur sound really painful. The book also deals with some real-life issues such as immigration laws, environmental issues, and the morality of medicinal testing on animals - which is my fancy way of saying, it discusses the killing of living creatures for the sake of medical/scientific testing. I didn't find the book was preachy on any of these topics - although the medical testing part was often creepy and somewhat disturbing - but it's your choice in the end.
Warning: while this review will not contain any major spoilers, due to the nature of the plot, some plot details may be mentioned. You've been warned.
This book is written in third person, with the primary character being Shay Remby, a 16-year-old girl in foster care. Her foster parents are climbers, and she lives with them and three other girls. They don't really appear in the story, but the climbing skills Shay learns from them become invaluable to her. Shay's quest begins when her brother, Odin, calls her late at night and tells her he has to run. They communicate secretly over multiple Facebook pages, and Shay decides to take matters into her own hands. With some food, the money she'd been saving over the years, and a bag of survival supplies taken from her foster parents, she heads to LA to find her brother.
This is where Shay meets the majority of the book's major cast. I've said in more than one review that the characters in a novel are what makes or breaks it for me, and the characters Sandford and Cook created in this novel definitely made it amazing. I won't lie, I am a huge fan of quirky, unpredictable characters. I love when characters defy the expectations you get when you meet them. There are many instances of this in this book, but one of the most notable ones is Cade. He's one of the street kids who lives in the Twist Hotel (more on that later), and when we first meet him, he's being brought back to the hotel by the police. The reason is that he hacked the demos at the Apple store, and later on we learn that this is not the only feat he's capable of when it comes to computers. He's a computer genius, and this soon proves to be very helpful to Shay and her cause. My favourite character from this novel, however, would probably be Twist. We never learn his first name, or if Twist is even his real name, He is the owner of the Twist Hotel, an old hotel that houses street kids in Hollywood. Twist himself is an artist and activist for many causes, such as immigration. The rumour throughout the novel is that Twist was a street kid himself, but when he became rich from his art, he bought the old hotel to shelter other kids. He becomes one of Shay's greatest allies in her quest to find her brother and stop Singular, the corporation that's after them. There are other characters worth mentioning, such as West, Odin, Cruz, Dum and Dee, and others, but for the sake of this review not being several thousand words long, I'll leave it there.
The plot itself was extremely well-executed. It never falls flat, and it is evident that extensive planning went into this novel. The writing is eloquent and streamlined, and despite the fact that two authors collaborated on it, the voice and characterization remains mostly consistent throughout. There are some stylistic features that appear in some places and not in others, which could evidence which author worked on which part of the novel, but overall I found it very smooth and easy to read.
One of the biggest stigmas found with YA novels with female protagonists is that they are often more concerned with their love lives than with the real problem at hand, and while I don't believe that is true with all female YA protagonists, the assumption still exists, and I felt obligated to deny it in this case. While there is a bit of a love triangle hinted at between Shay, Cruz, and Cade, it doesn't really come to anything (at least not in this book) and it doesn't detract from the rest of the story.
Overall, this is a great book. I've read it over and over and it doesn't get boring. The plot twists are unpredictable but all fit into the plot well. The next book in this series, Outrage, is due to come out July 14th 2015.
5/5 stars!
Warning: while this review will not contain any major spoilers, due to the nature of the plot, some plot details may be mentioned. You've been warned.
This book is written in third person, with the primary character being Shay Remby, a 16-year-old girl in foster care. Her foster parents are climbers, and she lives with them and three other girls. They don't really appear in the story, but the climbing skills Shay learns from them become invaluable to her. Shay's quest begins when her brother, Odin, calls her late at night and tells her he has to run. They communicate secretly over multiple Facebook pages, and Shay decides to take matters into her own hands. With some food, the money she'd been saving over the years, and a bag of survival supplies taken from her foster parents, she heads to LA to find her brother.
This is where Shay meets the majority of the book's major cast. I've said in more than one review that the characters in a novel are what makes or breaks it for me, and the characters Sandford and Cook created in this novel definitely made it amazing. I won't lie, I am a huge fan of quirky, unpredictable characters. I love when characters defy the expectations you get when you meet them. There are many instances of this in this book, but one of the most notable ones is Cade. He's one of the street kids who lives in the Twist Hotel (more on that later), and when we first meet him, he's being brought back to the hotel by the police. The reason is that he hacked the demos at the Apple store, and later on we learn that this is not the only feat he's capable of when it comes to computers. He's a computer genius, and this soon proves to be very helpful to Shay and her cause. My favourite character from this novel, however, would probably be Twist. We never learn his first name, or if Twist is even his real name, He is the owner of the Twist Hotel, an old hotel that houses street kids in Hollywood. Twist himself is an artist and activist for many causes, such as immigration. The rumour throughout the novel is that Twist was a street kid himself, but when he became rich from his art, he bought the old hotel to shelter other kids. He becomes one of Shay's greatest allies in her quest to find her brother and stop Singular, the corporation that's after them. There are other characters worth mentioning, such as West, Odin, Cruz, Dum and Dee, and others, but for the sake of this review not being several thousand words long, I'll leave it there.
The plot itself was extremely well-executed. It never falls flat, and it is evident that extensive planning went into this novel. The writing is eloquent and streamlined, and despite the fact that two authors collaborated on it, the voice and characterization remains mostly consistent throughout. There are some stylistic features that appear in some places and not in others, which could evidence which author worked on which part of the novel, but overall I found it very smooth and easy to read.
One of the biggest stigmas found with YA novels with female protagonists is that they are often more concerned with their love lives than with the real problem at hand, and while I don't believe that is true with all female YA protagonists, the assumption still exists, and I felt obligated to deny it in this case. While there is a bit of a love triangle hinted at between Shay, Cruz, and Cade, it doesn't really come to anything (at least not in this book) and it doesn't detract from the rest of the story.
Overall, this is a great book. I've read it over and over and it doesn't get boring. The plot twists are unpredictable but all fit into the plot well. The next book in this series, Outrage, is due to come out July 14th 2015.
5/5 stars!
