Reboot by Amy Tintera: Attractive Zombies Basically

Reboot 

by 

Amy Tintera

A plague wipes out half the human race, half of those rise again from the dead faster, stronger, and far less emotional. Guess who our bonny heroine is? A reboot named Wren who was dead for a whole 178 minutes before she rose. Which makes her pretty emotionless because apparently the longer you were dead the less human you became. I got this book in a spiteful rage because my library didn’t have Ruined 

My library basically

(as usual they had everything but the thing I wanted). 

But they had Reboot. I was a little skeptical because the whole idea sounded vaguely zombie-ish which I have to admit is not my favorite genre in the world. Still Reboot was exceedingly fabulous and I would like then next one yesterday please.

Characters

Wren: Usually I can’t stand people who cannot emote. But Wren was written well enough that I almost didn’t care. Now I can totally see the potential problems around a character who barely feels any sort of emotion at all and I wholly expected some cliché thing like ‘I realized I loved person B and now I have emotions’. 

And that is what happened. Sort of. It just wasn’t as awful as I thought it would be. And sure there were moments when I wished that she could act a little more human but those were (I think) intentionally frustrating so . . . A+ main character she was fabulous.

Callum: Hello person B. That being said I adored Callum. You know I think that’s the first time I’ve liked a love interest in weeks. 

So I mentioned that Wren was rebooted at 178 minutes . . . well Callum woke up after 22 minutes. Meaning he’s about as human as a reboot can get. So when Wren offers to train him (to keep him from the girl who would have been forced to pick him. Her Trainees were the most likely to die in the first two months) It’s the relationship of a big buff warrior and a slightly brain damaged puppy.

Ever: Wow a best friend who actually did stuff. Ever was so sweet and kind to Wren, even though Wren wasn’t always emotionally capable of being a good friend back. Ever was rebooted after 56 minutes or something like that so compared to Wren she was pretty normal. Then again compared to Callum . . . 

Anyway I loved Ever she was awesome.

Likes

The world: it was dystopian sure, which everyone knows isn’t really my favorite, but it managed to be grim without the soul crushing hopelessness that most YA Dystopians seem to revel in. 

That being said the grim part of the story, oppressive government, enslavement of some part of the population, the elimination of kids was all terrifying. Every time I read about that freaky general talking so casually about eliminating disobedient reboots I felt sick. In a good way I suppose. It was like Umbrage sick. 

Except not as bad as Umbrage.

The reboots attitude towards humans: oh my gosh they were so funny. But equally heartbreaking. Because the humans would be nice to them for a second (yes nice) and they would get very confused. And when I say confused I mean ranging from slightly uncomfortable to wondering if they were crazy or some such. 

It was hilarious but also mildly depressing.

Reboots in general: the whole idea was presented so well. Like I said I got zombie vibes from the blurb but they were so much more than simply undead. They were faster, stronger, and scarier. Also hotter because that’s how YA rolls. Whoops you got some sort form of super power? Better throw in some abs with that just in case. 

(I poke fun but it is totally true)

The writing: It was so smooth and well done. There were even a few info dumps that didn’t make me want to smack my head against the wall. I just have to appreciate writing that is easy to enjoy. Like there is good writing that’s hard to read (Shakespeare, Agatha Christie etc.) and then there’s good writing that is just so easy to read that it’s practically criminal. 

Dislikes

It was a tiny bit predictable: But honestly after you’ve read for so long the vast majority of books are at least a little bit predictable. Still I would venture to say that Reboot was a character driven so it didn’t really require an amazing plot. But required and wanted are two different things and while I would say that the characters are the more important part I still enjoy a fresh plot that I can’t see coming from a mile away. 

Still Reboot was an unexpected surprise. I so rarely find books where i actually like the vast majority of it. So now I really want to read everything else Tintera has written.