Alright, so I love Michael Grant. I mean, I freaking love Michael Grant. Animorphs revolutionized by childhood, Gone revolutionized how I think of teen fiction, Remnants revolutionized how I look at Scholastic (and no, that's not necessarily a good thing). I think Grant is one of the best children's/teen authors there is, and I'll eat up everything he writes.
That said? This was kind of mediocre.
I mean, the nanobots were cool. And the plot was tense and exciting, once it got off its feet. But it was still lacking. Part of what makes Grant's books so good is that he combines his tense plots with honest, human characters. That was unfortunately lacking here. The characters were indeed human, but they weren't explored very thoroughly. Their development just seemed obligatory - we need to have a character that doesn't experience pleasure here, we need a flamboyant one here, we need two normal characters with a romance here... it didn't feel organic.
No, Grant is too busy with something else to thoroughly develop his characters. He's expositioning about nanobots. (Is 'expositioning' a word? Fuck it, it is now.) There's just so much to say about them, and while it's cool, it got tiresome after a while. Nanobots are awesome, but not awesome enough to carry a novel. I needed more.
I expected more from you, Grant.
This is not necessarily a bad book. The plot takes longer than usual to kick off, but it's very well-written, and the nanobots were admittedly pretty amazing. But it's disappointing compared to what it could've been, compared to what Grant and his wife usually deliver. You'd be better reading Gone, Animorphs, Remnants, or even Eve and Adam.
Disappointing, but Not Necessarily Bad
(First book review only, of course. Also, this review is very abridged; you can find the full thing here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/467078099)
Alright, so I love Michael Grant. I mean, I freaking love Michael Grant. Animorphs revolutionized by childhood, Gone revolutionized how I think of teen fiction, Remnants revolutionized how I look at Scholastic (and no, that's not necessarily a good thing). I think Grant is one of the best children's/teen authors there is, and I'll eat up everything he writes.
That said? This was kind of mediocre.
I mean, the nanobots were cool. And the plot was tense and exciting, once it got off its feet. But it was still lacking. Part of what makes Grant's books so good is that he combines his tense plots with honest, human characters. That was unfortunately lacking here. The characters were indeed human, but they weren't explored very thoroughly. Their development just seemed obligatory - we need to have a character that doesn't experience pleasure here, we need a flamboyant one here, we need two normal characters with a romance here... it didn't feel organic.
No, Grant is too busy with something else to thoroughly develop his characters. He's expositioning about nanobots. (Is 'expositioning' a word? Fuck it, it is now.) There's just so much to say about them, and while it's cool, it got tiresome after a while. Nanobots are awesome, but not awesome enough to carry a novel. I needed more.
I expected more from you, Grant.
This is not necessarily a bad book. The plot takes longer than usual to kick off, but it's very well-written, and the nanobots were admittedly pretty amazing. But it's disappointing compared to what it could've been, compared to what Grant and his wife usually deliver. You'd be better reading Gone, Animorphs, Remnants, or even Eve and Adam.