August 29, 2017
496 Pages
He has no voice, or name, only a rank, Eighth. He doesn’t know the details of the mission, only the directives that hum in his mind.
Dart the humans. Leave them where they fall.
His job is to protect his Offside. Let her do the shooting.
Until a human kills her…
Sixteen year-old Raven is at summer camp when the terrifying armored Nahx invade, annihilating entire cities, taking control of the Earth. Isolated in the wilderness, Raven and her friends have only a fragment of instruction from the human resistance.
Shelter in place.
Which seems like good advice at first. Stay put. Await rescue. Raven doesn’t like feeling helpless but what choice does she have?
Then a Nahx kills her boyfriend.
Thrown together in a violent, unfamiliar world, Eighth and Raven should feel only hate and fear. But when Raven is injured, and Eighth deserts his unit, their survival depends on trusting each other…- Goodreads
1 Pickle
I normally do not provide a rating for a book nor would I normally review a book that I rate lower than 2 Pickles but this was an arc and I feel that a review is needed for this one.
This read started off okay. It was pretty obvious where the author is going in regards to growth of the characters the moment you start reading. Eighth and Raven have a chip on their shoulder even before they both go through their life changing situation. Which is fine but when reading Raven’s point of view, I didn’t like anything about her. She was clingy/needy and she has tools to stand on her own and she acts such like a badass but none of it is real.
Eighth’s character made more sense. His reactions, thoughts and movements made complete sense and it match the story or at least the summary much more than Raven. However, because the author switches between Eighth and Raven, I felt that there was a lot of story lost. What drove the story was emotion, be it rage, sympathy or love, I didn’t feel like the world was ending and that Eighth and Raven were the ones that were going to change it.
It was weird because a majority of the book I was waiting for that explosive intensity to make me want to dive into the book. But it never came.
The story felt dragged out, Raven was unlikable, not enough meat to the story and not enough depth.
I did not like this book and that is unfortunate because there was a lot the author could have done to make this spectacular.
Motif by Tanya 