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celsius273 's review for:
Firstlife
by Gena Showalter
The hardest reviews to write for me are the ones when I loved the concept and am rooting wholeheartedly for the book to be good as well, but the execution just falls flat. Unfortunately, Firstlife falls into that category. (Props for having a short title which makes typing reviews less annoying!)
In a time where increasing amounts of people are identifying as agnostic or atheist, imagine that the afterlife is apparently real and booming. Split in two rival factions, Troika and Myriad, you get to choose which one you join during your “firstlife” but you only get one chance to choose. Predictably, life on Earth has gone pseudo-dystopian with people disagreeing on whether to go with Troika - the “let’s be peaceful” place - and Myriad - the “let’s be powerful” place. But there’s also a third group, the ones who refuse to sign with either Troika and Myriad and that’s where we find our narrator at the start of the book.
Tenley “Ten” Lockwood is in what is essentially a prison for teens who refuse to sign with whatever group their parents want them to join, and that’s where my confusion starts. The kids are basically tortured into making a decision in brutal living conditions, understandable if not a bit nauseating, but so much time is spent in that beginning part that I was kinda surprised that it didn’t really play a big part in the book. Fine, we get introduced to Ten and all the other main characters, but couldn’t we have done this somewhere else?
Anyways, big surprise, they escape from prison and then the rest of the book is essentially spent in random life-threatening situations where Ten gets close to being forced into choosing one of the worlds b/c it’s either die and not get an afterlife or get one in Troika or Myriad. Along the way, she waffles between two hot guys (Archer and Killigan? Am I spelling that one correct - audiobook…) who are sent from both realms trying to convince her to join their respective team. What I don’t get (not that surprising considering this book tbh) is why the two guys are literally so friendly with each other. I mean if Ten is that important (and yes, she’s super duper important b/c there’s this whole weird power struggle going on in the Everlife and she’s also really powerful and could tip the scales) then I’d be pulling out all the stops to get her - yet that doesn’t even happen till the end.
Then there’s the way that the Everlife isn’t really explained that well. Obviously people there can get back to Earth, but the book says that it happens through “shells” where your soul basically leaps from the Everlife back into Firstlife. So were the shells real people or vat grown for the purpose of visiting Firstlife? If you can jump back and forth at will what happens to the shell when you leave it and why the fuck does anyone stay in their shell when they’re 0.2 nanoseconds away from dying? Yeah, I still got a lot of questions here…
It’s also a pity that the romance wasn’t really appealing. I know the author mostly for her romance books, so I was hoping that we could get a nice one going in this book, but it didn’t work out and I was a bit disappointed. Honestly though, the characters were all pretty annoying or dull so I don’t even think a hot romance would have revived them.
To reiterate, I really did like the concept of an Everlife and it brings up some nice ethical dilemmas like do your actions matter when everything is erased later and how far is too far in persuasion etc. But everything else about this book was annoying or lackluster which is a shame b/c I kinda want to read the whole series but if I have to listen to another awful poem or rant about number - “Zeroes” dear lord - from Ten, I won’t be able to do it.
In a time where increasing amounts of people are identifying as agnostic or atheist, imagine that the afterlife is apparently real and booming. Split in two rival factions, Troika and Myriad, you get to choose which one you join during your “firstlife” but you only get one chance to choose. Predictably, life on Earth has gone pseudo-dystopian with people disagreeing on whether to go with Troika - the “let’s be peaceful” place - and Myriad - the “let’s be powerful” place. But there’s also a third group, the ones who refuse to sign with either Troika and Myriad and that’s where we find our narrator at the start of the book.
Tenley “Ten” Lockwood is in what is essentially a prison for teens who refuse to sign with whatever group their parents want them to join, and that’s where my confusion starts. The kids are basically tortured into making a decision in brutal living conditions, understandable if not a bit nauseating, but so much time is spent in that beginning part that I was kinda surprised that it didn’t really play a big part in the book. Fine, we get introduced to Ten and all the other main characters, but couldn’t we have done this somewhere else?
Anyways, big surprise, they escape from prison and then the rest of the book is essentially spent in random life-threatening situations where Ten gets close to being forced into choosing one of the worlds b/c it’s either die and not get an afterlife or get one in Troika or Myriad. Along the way, she waffles between two hot guys (Archer and Killigan? Am I spelling that one correct - audiobook…) who are sent from both realms trying to convince her to join their respective team. What I don’t get (not that surprising considering this book tbh) is why the two guys are literally so friendly with each other. I mean if Ten is that important (and yes, she’s super duper important b/c there’s this whole weird power struggle going on in the Everlife and she’s also really powerful and could tip the scales) then I’d be pulling out all the stops to get her - yet that doesn’t even happen till the end.
Then there’s the way that the Everlife isn’t really explained that well. Obviously people there can get back to Earth, but the book says that it happens through “shells” where your soul basically leaps from the Everlife back into Firstlife. So were the shells real people or vat grown for the purpose of visiting Firstlife? If you can jump back and forth at will what happens to the shell when you leave it and why the fuck does anyone stay in their shell when they’re 0.2 nanoseconds away from dying? Yeah, I still got a lot of questions here…
It’s also a pity that the romance wasn’t really appealing. I know the author mostly for her romance books, so I was hoping that we could get a nice one going in this book, but it didn’t work out and I was a bit disappointed. Honestly though, the characters were all pretty annoying or dull so I don’t even think a hot romance would have revived them.
To reiterate, I really did like the concept of an Everlife and it brings up some nice ethical dilemmas like do your actions matter when everything is erased later and how far is too far in persuasion etc. But everything else about this book was annoying or lackluster which is a shame b/c I kinda want to read the whole series but if I have to listen to another awful poem or rant about number - “Zeroes” dear lord - from Ten, I won’t be able to do it.