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A review by bookishvice
Dualed by Elsie Chapman
3.0
Kersh is one of the last safe haven cities in the world. To maintain this status The Board has created a system to eliminate weak ones and breed the rest into soldiers who can defend their city. For this, every person is born with a twin, an alternate who they only meet once they’re activated to kill each other. After an alternate finishes a mission, he becomes a complete and has access to privileges the Idles, people who haven’t been activated to kill their alts, don’t have.
All that remains of West Grayer’s family is her brother, the rest failed their missions. But West has been training for the day they activate her, and she is confident she’ll do anything to survive. But then her brother dies in a accident, and she spirals into a dark cloud of grief. West thinks there’s nothing worth fighting for anymore, but her childhood friend is not about to let her give up.
Elsie Chapman’s Dualed is full of action and hard choices, as West searches for a reason to survive.
West is your typical kickass girl. She’s a fighter with a fiery temper and will, but she’s also horribly stubborn and this leads her to make some unreasonable decisions. Like become a Striker, a killer for hire, and terminating other alts but not hers. She also shuts out Chord, the only person left in her life who can help her. I just couldn’t understand that. Her alt was smarter than her in that aspect.
Overall, I didn’t connect with West, and as a reader who puts characters above all else, this was an issue for me. I couldn’t get involved in the world of Dualed because of her.
There’s a tiny bit of romance with Chord, but like I mentioned before West shuts him out. This means we don’t get much of it. Still, it was nice seeing him come back again and again, trying to reason with her. Helping her every step of the way in however way he could. It was very frustrating to read those parts. West keeps pushing him away, hurting him on purpose so that he stays away. She says she’s doing it because she loves him and wants him to be safe, but I just never felt the spark from her side of things.
The Board is the real threat, yet for all the illegal stuff West did, she never even got close to being in trouble. I wanted to see more injustice by the Board or something. I know this is only the first book, and maybe in others the Board will be more involved. But the ending pretty much wrapped it all up and I don’t think I’ll be up to round two with West.
*Arc copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley*
All that remains of West Grayer’s family is her brother, the rest failed their missions. But West has been training for the day they activate her, and she is confident she’ll do anything to survive. But then her brother dies in a accident, and she spirals into a dark cloud of grief. West thinks there’s nothing worth fighting for anymore, but her childhood friend is not about to let her give up.
Elsie Chapman’s Dualed is full of action and hard choices, as West searches for a reason to survive.
West is your typical kickass girl. She’s a fighter with a fiery temper and will, but she’s also horribly stubborn and this leads her to make some unreasonable decisions. Like become a Striker, a killer for hire, and terminating other alts but not hers. She also shuts out Chord, the only person left in her life who can help her. I just couldn’t understand that. Her alt was smarter than her in that aspect.
Overall, I didn’t connect with West, and as a reader who puts characters above all else, this was an issue for me. I couldn’t get involved in the world of Dualed because of her.
There’s a tiny bit of romance with Chord, but like I mentioned before West shuts him out. This means we don’t get much of it. Still, it was nice seeing him come back again and again, trying to reason with her. Helping her every step of the way in however way he could. It was very frustrating to read those parts. West keeps pushing him away, hurting him on purpose so that he stays away. She says she’s doing it because she loves him and wants him to be safe, but I just never felt the spark from her side of things.
The Board is the real threat, yet for all the illegal stuff West did, she never even got close to being in trouble. I wanted to see more injustice by the Board or something. I know this is only the first book, and maybe in others the Board will be more involved. But the ending pretty much wrapped it all up and I don’t think I’ll be up to round two with West.
*Arc copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley*