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Wildly entertaining and incredibly creative, this action-packed, emotion-filled adventure/rescue mission story is told in the form of interview transcripts, chat logs, video surveillance descriptions, journal entries, and AI core logs. While this format might not appeal to every reader, I loved how it grounded me in the action and gave me access to multiple points of view. Especially as the book progressed, the design enhanced the tension and atmosphere of each moment, matching the chaos and calm.
Kady and Ezra, our teenage MCs, aren’t just recent exes, they end up being each other’s lifelines through times of intense madness and grief. Like most teenagers, they aren’t perfect and don’t always communicate well, but in the end, they care deeply for one another and are willing to put their lives on the line to save one another. Of course, it helps that Kady is an insanely talented computer whiz, and Ezra has incredible reflexes and dexterity, so they are uniquely suited to a situation in which one needs to help deprogram/reprogram a faulty AI and one needs to fly fighter jets. But that convenience aside, Lady, Ezra, and the rest of the refugees are put through a massive emotional and physical wringer, requiring an incredible amount of stamina, fortitude, resilience, and hope. And we can only hope something survives to tell their story. No spoilers here, don’t worry.
The other main character we get to know is Aidan, the Alexander’s AI main computer, who controls everything on ship from weapons to life support to security cameras to doors. But Aidan is damaged in battle and is malfunctioning, and the humans are starting to question whether it’s trying to save them or kill them. I loved getting to know Aidan through his internal files, and those files are where we see the most creativity and beauty, where we start to wonder what makes a person uniquely themselves, an entity that cannot be replaced when destroyed. Can you be alive if you can’t die? Can you die if you’re never really alive? If you know my obsession with the Murderbot Diaries, you can likely guess my answer to these questions haha (and also why I loved Aidan). It was fascinating to see Aidan and Kady interact and to follow their evolving relationship dynamic.
I’m not going to talk too much more about the details of this book because I loved how it played out and I don’t want to risk spoiling anything for anyone, but there’s a lot of discussion about the morality/amorality of actions, the unpredictability of humans, and dichotomy of doing things “for the greater good” versus for personal and perhaps selfish reasons. There were a lot of things that happened in this book that I personally disagreed with and Kady and others make excellent points along the way, most specifically this: in the end, you have to choose the path that you can live with, according to your own moral code. If that means you become a “traitor” then so be it. If that means you prioritize saving 5,000 people at the expense of 2,000 people, so be it.
I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of the series - I literally can’t even imagine what’s going to happen next!