Genre: Scifi/Dystopian/Action suspense
Book Rating: 7.5
Personal Rating: 6
Okay. Don't know how many ways I can say this but this author is brilliant. This is another well crafted novel yet still like the last I just cant make it a five star. I really want to but I just cant.
This novel starts further into the future whereas the last one started in the past. That was refreshing. The plot as always moved along just fine. Twist and turns great, teen angst on point. Not much in those areas to complain about. The problem lies in the main character. In this book it's Ava and her teen daughter Grace.
Basically Ava after spending an entire book in Morray's past seeing how his father's need to work made him a bad father, well absent. Then Morray himself did the same thing to his son. Completely neglected him for the mission of continuing his father's work. And, now, Ava, has spent over fifteen years I believe, living in the mainframe and Lillian's journals trying to find Morray. Which subsequently placed her work above being a mother. Thankfully this child, Grace, has Joseph her father. But Resentment, yes. She has bucket loads of this stuff. And her excuse is, what I'm doing is for you.
Hold up.
I distinctly remember Morray telling Sarah that him creating the city center was for his son. Oh and then there was the ocean bit when Morray's dad told him as a boy that the ocean could be his. Just basically saying he was working so hard for him but in a different way. So, here I am in a third book and Ava after seeing two parents do this and both children not coming out so well, is making the same mistake. Honestly how stupid can she be. So no. I just couldn't go through another book of this no matter how mindblowingly good it was written. I just didn't like her. Much like her daughter was at odds with her. And yeah I sided with the child because I was irritated as well. This plot device has reached it's peek for me and if there's another main character who isn't smart enough to realise they are doing exactly what the people they are supposed to be destroying are doing, in this next book... I might just, oh I don't know. I just know I've reached my quota of the characters being so blindingly onesighted on the same issue.
Grace. Well I was almost going along with her. But you know what. Stubborn has it's limits. Just like with her mom she was just too stubborn. They both had no concept of rules at all. Stubborn sometimes yes, stubborn all the time. No. No. and No. Kind of like her love interest. Seriously you can date someone and be able to do your job. If you couldn't well no one would have parents because work would be too demanding for dating. Her need to ignore infatuation as if being normal as well as being a good soldier is impossible, is just ridiculous. Accept the guy is cute and you want him and move along and pass your exams like a normal child. This of course brings me back to her mother.
You get accepted to test and teach at a school, you are given specific instructions not to do anything until the end of the week. Ad what do you do. Hop right on into the mainframe. What? I would've sacked her. We have rules for a reason and I'm completely unconcerned that you feel that your agenda is more important than what we brought you here for. Shut up, I am your boss, and do what I tell you. I just couldn't believe that at every chance she had to show that she wasn't a single minded obsessive, just like Morray and his father, that she went on and proved she was just like them. I just couldn't like her, just like I couldn't like Morray in the last book for the exact same reason.
I actually said in my last review that I would be disappointed if I had to deal with the exact same child parent situation in the next book I'd be upset. And that's what I feel like I got. The same story again, but wrapped in a different plot. The excellent execution of this author's writing just gets lost because the characters in it annoyed me. I just didn't like Ava, and I really don't like that her daughter seems to be shaping up to be just like her. That would make four times obsessive behaviour made a character turn into what they are trying to destroy. I honestly can't do it anymore. I wish Joseph would've done like Sarah and ran of with Grace and forced Ava to realise just exactly what she was doing. But unfortunately that didn't work for Morray so I strongly doubt it would work for Ava.
The final act of this book, plot twists and reveals, was actually so good I considered bumping this book up to four star, even a five. I saw it coming to be honest, but I was wrong about who it was coming with. I can honestly say that at the end of book one, I knew that the ending of book three was coming. I just didn't see all the blind obsession stuff coming. But the end. I knew that was how it was going to go down because it directly opposed the whole mainframe hunt mission. In fact i was rooting for it to happen this whole book just to put Ava in her place. And the shame of it all is that when it happened she was still the cocky I'm better than you girl she is and didn't learn a damn thing from it. Annoyed.
There isn't much more to say without going into plot spoilers. The book was brilliant. Just as the last two. This writer is a masterful story teller. I just can't go along for the ride of how the characters move the story around. The lead in this book and the last just seem stupid, and they had loads of people chances, evidence point to the fact they were going about it all wrong and they still persisted. It's just too hard to see how awesome something is when one character, let alone more than one, bugs you. Especially if it's a main.
Would I recommend this book. Most definitely. In general, just like the last it's probably more than five star material to the masses. And there's another part. Judging by the ending though I'm slightly afraid I'll be stuck in the mainframe with two obsessive people and one on the outside, or stubborn in their belief that what they are doing is the right thing. It be nice of at least one or all of them got clarity before half the book was done. That would really make me happy. Still, brilliance is brilliance, and this book is stupendously brilliant. I did like it more than the last so that's saying something. A whole lot of something.
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