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A review by bookph1le
One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence
3.0
This was okay. I wasn't super excited about it, but it did have some interesting ideas, and I thought the story was decent. I think I wasn't more into it because it wasn't quite what I expected it to be. If anything, it's more coming-of-age with a bit of sci fi thrown into it, while I was expecting something much more sci fi heavy. Partially this is the fault of the overblown publicity-speak declaring this is some mash-up of Ready Player One and Stranger Things, when it bears no more than an *extremely* superficial resemblance to Stranger Things, in that it's about a group of young teens that takes place in the late 80s/early 90s. I do not see the connection to Ready Player One at all.
Another aspect that failed to grab me were the characters. I didn't dislike any of them, but I was lukewarm on all of them, particularly on Mia. I also found it hard to really reconcile with why Nick was willing to risk as much as he was for her sake. None of the other guys really came alive for me either. And the villain was just pretty stock to me.
Also, that twist. For a bunch of smart characters, they're about as dense as they come.
What I did appreciate about this novel, though, is that it poses some pretty hefty moral questions, such as the high costs to pay for the big decisions in life. I appreciated that it presented these in very gray terms as this could easily have turned into an oversimplified right versus wrong scenario, something I think YA fiction does too much of.
Another aspect that failed to grab me were the characters. I didn't dislike any of them, but I was lukewarm on all of them, particularly on Mia. I also found it hard to really reconcile with why Nick was willing to risk as much as he was for her sake. None of the other guys really came alive for me either. And the villain was just pretty stock to me.
Also, that twist. For a bunch of smart characters, they're about as dense as they come.
What I did appreciate about this novel, though, is that it poses some pretty hefty moral questions, such as the high costs to pay for the big decisions in life. I appreciated that it presented these in very gray terms as this could easily have turned into an oversimplified right versus wrong scenario, something I think YA fiction does too much of.