Title: Disruption
Author: Jessica Shirvington
Pages: 406
Year: 2016
Publisher: HarperCollins

Disruption, a novel by Jessica Shirvington, is a story about Maggie Stevens who is in search of what happened to her father. In this thriller, not set too far into the future, people must wear a device that allows them to turn on the engines of their cars, monitor their health, and, most importantly, rate people’s compatibility with each other. The technology, created by M-Corp and owner Garrett Mercer, is used to match people together so that people will marry who they make the most likely matches. The society dwells on basing their lives on the technology rather than natural human interaction and attraction even to the point where people who have too many negative ratings are treated as criminals and take away for rehabilitation. Unfortunately, the ‘negs’ are used for more sinister purposes. Maggie hates the system and, above all else, wants to find her father who was labeled a ‘neg’ and taken away two years before. Now, Maggie is 18 and has been devising a plan to find her father and disrupt the system. She will do whatever it takes, including using teenage Quentin Mercer, son and heir of the M-Corp CEO, to find out what happened to her father. What Maggie doesn’t count is falling in love with boy she is using.
Disruption is a story that I thoroughly enjoyed as it kept my interest throughout the entire 400 or so pages. It was a riveting story full of danger, intrigue, and action-packed adventure. I loved how Shirvington wrote the characters as flawed individuals living in a flawed society. Although Maggie, Quentin, and other characters have many undesirable qualities, there are many good characteristics that make them who they are. For example, Quentin seems to be an arrogant rich kid that people seem to bend over backward to ingratiate themselves to win his favor; however, he really wants to separate himself from his family’s legacy in order to be a normal kid. It is revealed that he has a sense of what is right and wrong as he discovers what his father has been doing. Maggie, on the other hand, has a sense of doing something right but lies, cheats, steals, and even uses people to accomplish her goals. She is obsessed about finding her father no matter who might get hurt in the process. For what I consider a YA novel, as is the case with many novels written for teens, I think some of the profanity could have been toned down or eliminated altogether. I know that teens, as well as adults, hear and probably use profanity somewhat excessively, but its use does not add to the story. There are other ways of showing a person’s mood and character that do not distract from the story. In spite of the profanity, I still like the story very much and look forward to the sequel, Corruption, coming in 2017. I recommend this book to an older YA audience, but due to the profanity, I think younger teens and preteens should wait a few years before reading this novel.
My rating is 5.
Guest review by Cleve Johnson
Note: I received a complimentary copy for an honest review of this book. The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility. Other reviews can be read at http://seekingwithallyurheart.blogspot.com/ . Also follow me on Twitter@lcjohnson1988, FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/lisa.johnson.75457 ( )

I'd never read any of Jessica Shirvington's books before, but when I saw there would be a Melbourne book launch of Disruption I decided to go along and see what the fuss was about. I really enjoyed Jess' talk and while standing in line waiting to get my book signed, having finished the previous book I was reading, I read the first hundred pages (I was at the back of the line). So first thing that jumped out to me, this book is an eaay read and this is probably the only thing that didn't change from start to finish.

Maggie Stevens lives in a world where people find their perfect match through a microchip embedded in 'M-Bands'. 'M-Bands' can also be used detect the people who don't match well with anyone, the 'negs', who are thought to be the cause of crime and other bad things. Maggie has lost someone she loves to this technology, and she'll do anything to defy the system and get them back.

The problem is, I found, that many people were lost to this technology, people that over the book Maggie comes into contact with, but she doesn't care about them. I admire her strength and her drive, and her want to do right. I just wish she wanted to do right by everyone who had been affected, rather than just her personal interest in the matter. I understand why she did a lot of the things that she did, but I think with what she was trying to achieve she could have done more had she widened her scope. Her selfishness in the end was her downfall.

I feel like I say this a lot, but I really wish that authors would stop focusing on the physical appearances of their characters. It always seems to be the good looking guy that everyone wants and the girl that doesn't know she's beautiful. It's so boring and I'm sick of it. And why are all the other girls bitches and why do they all want that one other guy? Seriously, he was nice but wasn't the only guy in the world! The romance was kinda nice but I also felt she let too much get in the way of her objective. As romance does, but come on. So much more at stake here!

Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading this book and I'm looking forward to the sequel, it will be interesting to see where it goes from here. ( )