Review: Reboot by Amy Tintera

Reboot (Reboot #1)
by Amy Tintera
Published: May 7, 2013




Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders.

It’s nice to read a book that has kick-ass female leads again. Not that I haven’t met any good protagonists lately but I meant kick-ass in a literal sense. You know the ones that engage in well-executed fights and all that (yep, I meant you two, Violet and Ryn). Call me anything you want but I like my characters in action and that is what made me interested in Reboot in the first place. And wouldn't you know you it, I got the taste of what Amy Tintera's writing would bring me since the first page, immediately anticipating more.

Brought back to life from death, Reboots are like robots with their enhanced abilities that make them deadly to humans. The longer you stay dead before you are Rebooted, the lesser grasp you have left on humanity thus making Wren the deadliest having been dead for 178 minutes before waking up as a Reboot. She is unmindful of human emotions which makes her the best soldier of HARC, a group of humans responsible for controlling every Reboot.

I like the concept of this book. Reboots can easily overpower humans what with the changes in their physical characteristics, but this time they really are powerless against them. Humans have found a way to make Reboots follow their orders whether it is capturing or killing, no questions asked. But when a new Reboot who is technically still really close to being human starts to challenge these beliefs Wren had never doubted before, she finds herself beginning to open her mind and her heart. It was an amazing experience reading from Wren's perspective especially with the way the author has written it. The gradual change of her uncaring, untouchable and reserved personality to something so.. human was nicely paced that it doesn't seem sudden and unbelievable. The development of Wren's friendship with her roommate Ever is so realistic that I found myself tearing up in the end. Callum and Wren's relationship is really sweet but there's plenty of action and suspense as well.

I especially loved the ending! It was definite and not a baffling cliffhanger at all. So close to a happy ending but not quite which makes me excited to read what happens next because I really have no idea. I leave it all to the author to surprise me. I really can't wait.

Words!

"Do that thing where you look blank, like you have no feelings at all."

"I think that's just my face."

_____________

"What do they care? They've killed me."

"You're still here," I whispered.

"Barely."

_____________

I remember looking up at the sky and wondering where the rest of it went.

"There's more sky in Texas, darlin'. You ain't ever gonna know anything else, but look up and appreciate it occasionally anyway."

____________

"I just told you I'm One-seventy-eight. It doesn't bother me in the least to kill you."