Reboot
FlumeAward – Reboot Reboot by Amy Tintera
Wren is a reboot -a human who woke up after death. Reboots are gathered and trained to do the humans’ dirty work, whether tracking down and capturing/killing criminals or extracting sick people before they can infect anyone else. Wren is particularly skilled, which has to do with how long she was dead before rebooting -178 minutes. Longer death means less human, which translates to stronger, more efficient, less emotional. As one of the higher numbers, she is also charged with training new reboots, which she does well -almost none of her trainees have ever been killed (permanently, this time). She thinks this is because she’s good, but she also chooses the highest number reboots, too. As an experiment, this time, she chooses a 22.
Callum, the 22, is very nearly still human, full of emotions, questions, and rebellion.
This was an interesting story, and technically a story about zombies, even though it didn’t have that feel. I found it to be strongly reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake books, in the constant classifying of the heroine as a monster for what she does and is good at, and the constant worrying of said heroine that she doesn’t wish to be seen as that monster. All it needs is a ménage à many, and we’re there!
Definitely a book for older teens. Not recommended for the Flume List. -Kirsten Rundquist Corbett, Sandown Public Library
I agree that this shouldn’t be a book for the list, but mostly because I can’t even get through it. It just seems flat to me with just-get-on-with-it spans. There is plenty of violence and running around here, but the story and the characters don’t present consistently enough to make it work for me, I will tell the truth though, I only made it a little more than half way before I left them hiding from the guards behind a dumpster having a conversation. ~ Sharon Flesher, Nashua High South