Rating: 3/5
Author: Lissa Price
Pages: 272
Sequel to: Starters
Genre: Young Adult/Science Fiction/Dystopian
Synopsis:
This is the second and last book of the Starters series. Not much time has passed since the ending of the
previous book, and Callie is still hearing the voice of the Old Man in her
head, but things are getting worse than Callie could have ever imagined—even
with the destruction of Prime Destinations, the Old Man seeks to take control
of everyone with chips in their head and sell them to the highest bidder as a
weapon.
With a new found friend, Hyden, that Callie can’t be sure is
trustworthy, Callie endeavors to stop the Old Man once and for all before he
takes over her body and never gives it back!
My Reaction:
I must say, I liked this book a little bit better than the
first one. Parts toward the end seemed to draw me in a little bit more.
However, I was also tempted not to finish reading it because for the first bits
of the book I was still in the, “Meh, this isn’t bad but not super awesome,”
frame of mind. So if you liked the first one, definitely read this one, and
just like I said with the first story, there’s definitely a market for this
book and readers who will absolutely love it.
It still has some good action and mystery and a killer twist
at the end that made me rethink everything about the first book. I did not see
that coming! This book doesn’t really feel like the end though. It almost seems
like there should be one more book. Maybe we’ll have another one in the future,
or maybe it’s one of those cases where the author leaves the audience to fill
in the blank. Things are wrapped up well enough so you won’t be like, “What the
heck?! That’s the end!” It just seems setup for another book.
I think there was only really one, maybe two things that
bugged me, and it’s just a personal preference. I’m sure other readers eat this
stuff up! Number one: “He was good-looking in such an intense way, it almost
scared me” (page 39). Yeah, apparently that’s just not my style of writing. I
think I may have bought it in high school, but now I read it and think, “That’s
not even real! Who thinks like that?!” Maybe I just don’t understand passion
and romance in the world of books. Or perhaps I’m a sucker for a different sort
of romance. Later on, there was a moment with the same fellow where he takes
her hand and puts it on his abs for her to feel (page 86), and again I was just
kind of like, “Okay?”
Like I said, I’m pretty sure that’s just reader preference.
If you read the post about Starters,
you’ll now know that I don’t really care for make out scenes in books or what I
deem to be crazy, unrealistic romantic thoughts. I just can’t relate to that!
I’ve never looked at a guy and thought he was so intensely handsome that it
scared me. Nope.
Reader Guidance:
I’ll try to do this spoiler free, but here’s your spoiler
warning just in case.
- There are two instances where chips in people’s brains blow up. In one case, a man’s arm is severely injured (the pain on his face is described and the fact that his arm is completely black).
- There are a few people who get shot. Some die, some don’t.
- A guy is crushed and killed by a garage door.
- There are some cases of slapping or punching people.
- A character stabs herself in the arm with a letter opener.
- In one test to control a character with a chip, the testers have the character shoot targets of harmless people, including a friend. Then the actual people are brought in and the test is repeated on them with blanks, not real bullets.
- A character has a condition where every time he touches someone he has extreme pain.
- One character remembers how his renter wanted to use his artistic abilities to draw girls naked.
- When one character is hacked, she is forced to do a strip tease. She removes her shirt and camisole so she is in her bra, but they don’t go any farther than that.
- This one is kind of a spoiler: Blake asks what he and Callie did while someone else was taking control of his body in the last book. He asks if they did anything more. Callie tells him that they just kissed giving the impression that what he was trying to ask was if they’d had sex.
Similar Books:
The Host by
Stephanie Meyer
Uglies by Scott
Westerfield
Next Book:
First off, let me say that it may be a little bit before you
get another book review on here. I have the next book in mind, so I’ll go ahead
and put that here. However, as you saw from my last post, I’m trying to stick
in NaNoWriMo mode. Not only that, my husband and I are in the processes of
getting things packed up and moved to a new place which should all be said and
done in a few weeks. So I might not get a lot of reading done! But the next
book with be Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtlipp.
