Review: Rebel by Amy Tintera

Title: Rebel

Author: Amy Tintera

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication Date: 5.13.2014

Pages: 340

Genre: Young Adult, SciFi

Series: Reboot #2

Source: eARC from publisher

Rating: 3 Stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

After coming back from death as Reboots and being trained by HARC as soldiers, Wren and Callum have finally escaped north, where they hope to find a life of freedom. But when they arrive at the Reboot Reservation, it isn't what they expected. Under the rule of a bloodthirsty leader, Micah, the Reboots are about to wage an all-out war on the humans. Although Wren's instincts are telling her to set off into the wilderness on their own and leave the battle far behind, Callum is unwilling to let his human family be murdered. When Micah commits the ultimate betrayal, the choice is made for them. But Micah has also made a fatal mistake . . . he's underestimated Wren and Callum.

The explosive finale to the Reboot duology is full of riveting action and steamy love scenes as Wren and Callum become rebels against their own kind.

Review:

Last year, Amy Tintera’s Reboot was one of my favorite debuts. What I especially loved about the series was that it was a duology. For some reason my psyche can handle a duology better than a trilogy or series, so I jumped at the chance to read this when it popped up on Edelweiss. I had been waiting a year for REBEL, but I think I lost some of the magic somewhere along the way.

REBEL picks up right where Reboot left off. Hardly any time has passed, for which I was grateful. Wren, Callum, and crew arrive at the reservation and you immediately get a hinky feeling. Something definitely wasn’t right. Think when the Walking Dead crew showed up in Woodbury.

You knew this Utopia was going to implode. But for some reason, this book plateaued around 45%. It just stalled and I wound up setting it down and not returning to it for several weeks. The drive and passion that kept my attention in Reboot was simply gone.

I finally forced myself to finish and I’m glad I did—the series has a great conclusion and the action/speed did pick back up. If it weren’t for that massive lull in the middle, this would be a solid 4-5 star rating.  But it’s still a satisfying conclusion to a great debut.