Warcross

Marie Lu has written some of my favorite all time characters. June and Day. Her Legend series really wrecked me for a while. Then I didn't love her next series. But Warcross is a whole other ballgame. (It's playoff time for my Yankees so bear with the sports metaphors) In this series, Emika is a hacker who has turned bounty hunter to make a living. See, Warcross is a global phenomenon (think Fortnite on steroids) The whole world plays in VR created by the elusive Hideo Tanaka- teen genius. Emika has long admired him from afar. Just when she is on the brink of being on the streets, she finds herself glitches into the game and all of a sudden the whole world knows her. And Hideo offers her a job- find out who is hacking his game. He makes her an offer she can't refuse and she is suddenly the most watched player in the game. As she and Hideo get closer, more danger than they can imagine is on it's way in the form of Zero, the hacker determined to take out the game and possibly Emika and Hideo as well. The closer she gets to Zero, the more danger she is in. But who is Hideo really? And whose side should she really be on? I loved this book, and look forward to reading the sequel Wildcard. The issues brought up in this book are timely and scary. The more we connect to our technology, the less we seem to be connecting to each other. Would we notice if it started to take over even more of our lives? Would we notice too late to stop it? Yikes. I think kids will love the video game component of this novel. That and a little romance makes it a perfect read for a weekend day. Happy reading my friends!