{ARC} Review: LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff || Book two is going to be AMAZING

LIFEL1K3

LIFEL1K3 #1

Jay Kristoff

On a floating junkyard beneath a radiation sky, a deadly secret lies buried in the scrap.
Eve isn’t looking for secrets—she’s too busy looking over her shoulder. The robot gladiator she’s just spent six months building has been reduced to a smoking wreck, and the only thing keeping her Grandpa from the grave was the fistful of credits she just lost to the bookies. To top it off, she’s discovered she can destroy electronics with the power of her mind, and the puritanical Brotherhood are building a coffin her size. If she’s ever had a worse day, Eve can’t remember it.
But when Eve discovers the ruins of an android boy named Ezekiel in the scrap pile she calls home, her entire world comes crashing down. With her best friend Lemon Fresh and her robotic conscience, Cricket, in tow, she and Ezekiel will trek across deserts of irradiated glass, infiltrate towering megacities and scour the graveyard of humanity’s greatest folly to save the ones Eve loves, and learn the dark secrets of her past.
Even if those secrets were better off staying buried.

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Published: May 29th 2018

Murder, Gore, Violence, Death, Bullying, Animal Cruelty ~~robotic~~, Mention of Suicide, Mention of Cancer, Abandonment, Physical Abuse, Torture, War Themes

“We’re crawling into the city through a sewer?” Lemon groaned.
“You have a better plan?” Ezekiel asked.
“You could take me away from all this? Make an honest woman of me?”

Here’s the thing with me and Kristoff’s books: they always catch me in the end. I was ready to give this big review on disappointments (which… I’ll still talk about don’t worry) but that set up for book two?! I AM HERE FOR IT. ONE MILLION PERCENT.

Robots, bot fights, “deviants,”—people who get abilities from the environment. Running from assassins and amazing friendship snarky, loyal robot protectors. It was very Mad Max, gave ~~Romeo and Juliet~~ Anastasia vibes while being very gritty and pretty good.

“Breathing in the ink and feeling all those wonderful lives beneath you fingertips. In between the pages, I’m an emperor. An adventurer. A warrior and a wanderer. In between pages I’m not myself-and more myself than in any other place on earth.”

The world was quite vivid, which is something I usually have a problem with since my mind refused to focus on it. I saw the dust and grit and felt the heat and it was very atmospheric. Yet, Kristoff’s thing with creating fake curse words; it’s fine… until it’s not. Reading the word ‘Fug’ over and over again became trying.

And here’s the thing: I was expecting a lot and ultimately didn’t get it. Let’s take the romance for example. The main reason I wasn’t feeling it and thought it was unnecessary was the fact that… it didn’t go the way I thought it would. There was no build up, no falling, no angst. And sure, we can use the excuse of they have a past but given the circumstances, there still shouldn’t have been any instalove. At all.

Even the flashbacks (which I believed to be the best parts of the book) were instalovey. No build up, just he had the bluest eyes and a very pretty dimple.

“This is not the end of me.
This is just one more enemy.”

And I liked Eve… even though I couldn’t really connect with her until the end? She’s you’re typical bad ass, shoot first ask questions later. Again, she doesn’t get truly interesting until the very end.

Ezekiel as a character is as perfect as they come. You can chalk it up to he’s a robot but it’s attempted to be sold that he has freedom of thought and is super close to being a human… he was just… really perfect. A Ken doll, if you will. Which made the romance even more unfavorable.

If I’m honest, he was the worst part of the story. I don’t know, any scene with him and Eve made me exasperated. Give me Eve and Lemon Fresh and Cricket and this would’ve been so much better.

“I didn’t think they made sewer rats that big,” Lemon muttered.
“I didn’t think they made anything that big,” Eve nodded.
“I kept waiting for them to stand up and ask me for directions,” Lemon shuddered. “I swear one of them was wearing a waistcoat.”

Speaking of Lemon Fresh and Eve, I loved them together, okay? The loyalty and friendship and Lemon Fresh herself. It’s quite obvious she’s my favorite. And Cricket, ~~though dismissed often which I thought was unfair, give him some credit~~ was just so damned lovable.

BUT THE END. I did guess the plot twist 80 pages in ~~we all know how mad I get when I guess plot twist~~, but I was NOT guessing that end. Yet despite all of my griping, this was an okay read and I’m now super excited for book two. I have ALL THE FAITH for the sequel because that ending??! May be my second favorite thing about this book. I don’t know how book two is going to go now. I’m shell shocked.