Nemesis by Brendan Reichs: I’m going to spoil everything because I don’t care.

Nemesis 

by 

Brendan Reichs

Every two years on Min’s birthday she’s murdered. A man finds her and kills her and she wakes up in a clearing outside her town miles away from home. When she gets there, all evidence of her murder is completely erased. Even her clothes are pristine making her wonder if her murders are real or a figment of her imagination.

In the same town Noah has nightmares of murder and death which result in him sleep walking to some spot in the woods. Desperately hiding the signs from an uncaring father and friends Noah begins to panic. Even more so when he realizes that everyone might just be lying to him about his strange habits.

And if all that wasn’t enough, how about some existential dread thrown in. The Anvil, an asteroid big enough to destroy all life on earth could be on a collision course with earth. In a month or two Min and Noah might not have to worry about their supernatural problems since for all they now the human race will be extinct by then.

Which sounds great but this book is a lie! It’s full of crap and makes no freaking sense and I’m going to spoil everything.

Characters

Min: Despite my dislike of this book Min isn’t so bad. Sure, she falls prey to the ‘YA teenagers are crazy-evil to the point of psychopathic-ness’ trope but at least she actually has a reason to be a jerk every once in a while. After all, she’s murdered every two years. Despite that she’s clever and strong and all in all she was alright. Probably the only one who was actually interesting.  

Tack: I don’t like him. He’s just . . . every. Single. Sidekick. Trope. Ever. I dislike it in the extreme. Tack is bullied at home and at school, and nobody does anything about it!! He runs his mouth in a dangerous way so min has to keep saving his bum. He’s foolish and loyal and Gah! I hate him. No, no. no more. You can’t just throw a bunch of tropes into one character and call it good.  

   

Noah: I also, don’t like him. I think the author was trying to give him anxiety? Which I guess is good? but it seems to only affect him when the story needs it too. For instance, when the book needs him to find the home of the man who continually kills him, Noah does it. No locking up, no anxiousness. Just does it. but when the story needs him to step aside for Min to be cool. He freaks out. So, yearly murders he’s fine, but standing up to peer pressure nope. Too scary. That makes sense. Plus, Noah turns unexpectedly evil which made no sense what so ever. What? I said there would be spoilers.

Likes

The premise was interesting: I mean it's why i picked up the book ya know? That blurb was masterful at convincing me that i'd actually like the silly book. But alas, it twas not to be.

Dislikes

Imma spoil a thing really quick because most of my complaints hinge on it k? 

k.

The world literally ends. It gets blown up by some sort of ghost-star-thing. And the worlds grand plan to survive this ghost star? They don’t! as far as I can tell they don’t even try! So, deciding that the world is domed and that there’s no way to save the human race what do they do? They save a random group of teenagers. By downloading their conscious brains to some supercomputer. Did you here that?

 This thriller just turned sci fi and I hate it. So with this craziness put to paper let’s move on to the actual dislikes.

This book is a heaping pile of confusion with a healthy does of existential dread added in: the confusion is easy. That ‘explanation’, if that’s what you can call the above insanity, makes absolutely no sense. But who cares if it makes sense! Because the world is going to end and nobody can do anything about it! because there’s no big bad guy. There’s no antagonist. Just a giant space rock that’s going to crash into the earth and kill everyone. Good times. Nothing like a healthy dose of complete helplessness to make you feel happy.

These teenagers are the absolute worst: of all the people, you could have saved! Why not some scientist! Or some actually intelligent people! Not a bunch of random kids from Idaho. Especially not these kids. They’re all jerks anyway. Look, I’ve never really been to a public school 

(I was homeschooled for pretty much my entire school career) 

but if it’s anything like this I’m surprised people survive it. A group of kids literally beat up another child, to the point of almost breaking his hand, and nobody does anything. A girl retaliates by BLOWING UP the offender’s car! And again, nobody does anything.

These children are cruel, destructive and I would not be surprised if they all turned out to be psychopaths.

And that doesn’t even begin to cover the last fifth of the book where they’re all in the giant super computer with no adult supervision. No surprise here but it turns into Lord of the Flies. The bullies take over. They legit murder somebody. And then everything dissolves into chaos. Genius mister government conspiracy people. Genius. Of all the people, you could have saved. You saved these yahoos.

That ending made no freaking sense: I’ve already complained about this a lot. But hey-ho I’m going to complain some more. Because here is a short list of why this book makes no sense.

• Apparently, Min and Noah dying was practice for saving these kids. But later it says that they’re saved in a computer program. So then how in the WORLD! Did Noah and Min repeatedly die and come back! What the ever loving heck I don’t understand.

• The government concipiracy thing saved a bunch of random teenagers instead of smart people

• They didn’t tell anybody that they were going to do it

• That includes the parents and the children who were being saved!

• They didn’t tell them they were being saved

• They didn’t tell them they were saved in a giant computer

• They didn’t give them any instructions what-so-ever

• Check that, they gave them directions hidden in a bunker that, had the plan gone on without random teenagers finding it, would still be hidden

• To clarify, they left instructions/explanations in a hidden! Underground! Bunker! That nobody knew about!

• Because that makes sense

• Not to mention they left them with no adult supervision

• And unexpected everything to just be sunshine and rainbows

• Unsurprisingly. It wasn't

• Because they obviously saved a bunch of intelligent, hard-working and chill people

• No they saved kids who were beating the crap out of each other and blowing up cars when there actually were adults.

I dislike this book. It drew me in with a crazy plot and strange questions. Did it answer them? No. It gave me a bunch of government conspiracy/end of the world/sc-fi crap.