The first chapter felt really
forced. When it was talking about Marty being the first death, something about
it was almost eye roll inducing. Aside from that Tucker just wasn’t all that
likable. I get it, it’s a big deal what’s going on, but he just felt whiny and
mildly annoying. Quinn on the other hand felt way too over the top. It seemed
like MacHale was going for Ying and Yang, but it just missed its mark for me. I
didn’t like either of them enough. I have a five chapter rule though. I will
always read at least the first five chapters before I decide to give up on a
book. Without that, I would have really struggled with whether to continue or
not after the first one.
Tucker throughout the entire book
has a pretty decent progression. He transforms into a tougher kid that is
prepared to do what is necessary. His progress feels pretty authentic, but he
still has some ways to go for me to drop the negative first impression I am
still carrying around. He did a great deal of taking charge toward the end, and
it was definitely respectable though. I think he has a really good chance of turning
into a character I will really like in the future, but only time will tell.
Quinn was pretty short lived. He
never grew on me during his life, and nothing that has happened is doing
anything to fix that. His death wasn’t all that upsetting to me. I felt bad for
Tucker, but the constant reference to Quinn just added to my distaste for his
character. I know it had to be hard on Tucker, it can’t be easy watching your
best friend get vaporized, but MacHale did more tell me his grief rather than
showing it to me.
Tori also seems forced to me. It
just really feels like MacHale wants to stick them all with wildly different
traits that all come together seamlessly to make the readers fall in love. I
don’t like feeling that way. I want to love characters because they seem to be
worth loving all on their own. Tori was annoying until she wasn’t. After she
showed Tucker the horses I felt a little better about her, but it wasn’t until
they were in the resistance camp that I stopped being distrustful of her.
Kent and Oliva never really seem
to get better. Kent is all macho until shit hits the fan. He manages to step up
twice, but always seems to make you hate him for it. That’s not always a bad
thing. Most books have characters you love to hate. What bothers me about it is
there are already a host of mildly annoying main characters. You should like at
least one of them. Oliva just never seems to pick a personality. She’s carefree
beach girl, she all about the jocks, she all about Tucker, she’s crying in a
corner, she bandages a gunshot wound… It’s sort of head spinning. Any one of
those would have been fine with me, just not all of them in a span of about a
week.
The death that made me tear up
was Tori’s father. When he was taken down I was pretty upset. I liked him as a
character and Tori’s grief came through the pages so strongly. You could feel it permeating her very existence
and commitment to carry on what he had started. It made me really start to get
invested in the future of Pemberwick Island (which was sad because it happens
in the last 100 or so pages).
I really like the feel of SYLO.
They are shrouded in enough mystery that I want to figure out who they are and
what they want. I will say I was a little disappointed in the big reveal at the
very end. The possible civil war doesn’t live up to the hype of the rest of the
book. It would be more interesting if it was a foreign country, or a secret
country people didn’t know about, or even an alien race. Maybe the next book
can turn it into something incredible. For now, there is a bit of
disappointment.
The most exciting part of the
book for me was the boat chase at the end. It was a little nerve wracking as
they moved at high speeds through all the carnage in the water. It wasn’t
enough to make me fall in love with the whole book, but it gave me hope that it
will keep getting better and more exciting.
Looking forward to book two, I am
hoping to see Tucker make some pretty major improvements, Tori to be a bit more
likeable (not necessarily to the other characters, I like her gruff nature),
Oliva to pick on personality and stick with it, and Kent to either level
himself out or get picked off. I’m also interested to know what lead to the
events in this book, how Ruby factors into it all, and how Tucker and Quinn’s
parents are involved. There was a lot of good foreshadowing.
So overall, it was good but not
great.
No comments:
Post a Comment