Warcross by Marie Lu was so much fun!

For years I've been hearing that Marie Lu is an incredible writer and I should pick up some books by her. It took a while, but I finally managed to get my hands on Warcross, and I was not disappointed! This book is a great YA delight and kept me hooked from the first page!

Erika Chen is a bounty hunter who is in a difficult position. She needs cash to be able to afford her rent, so she jumps into the giant Warcross opening ceremony to steal an important power-up. Warcross is a giant video game that has giant competitions every year. Little did she know that she'd be drafted into the game to try to solve a mystery... There's someone hacking in the game who goes to destroy it and potential Hideo in the process. She's been hired by Hideo to find out who this is and stop them, but will she be able to?

This is what I expected the film Ready Player One to be. It was super fun and easy to read, and kept a very fast pace throughout the entire book. The book combines video game, future technologies, mind games and lots of drama all into the 300-something pages it presents itself in.

The plot twists that occur I barely saw coming, which makes me totally impressed. Different things are revealed in this story, and you just KNOW Marie is taking it somewhere. Why would she introduced some tech and characters without actually using them? Marie Lu is a smart writer and sets you up to see the ending, but gives you enough twists and turns to not totally expected it. Truly, I enjoyed it!

And then there's the romance. It's just barely a pinch, but it's there. The romance won't sweep you off your feet, but it will leave little crumbs for you to grasp at. This isn't a romance book, so it's not the end of the world. I'm nosy to see how it plays out, but I have a good idea it's not going to go as good as we want it... I think Wildcard is going to have some bombshells, much like this book had near the end.

My biggest frustration was the cliffhanger. I was really hoping for some sort of ending to make me feel sane and not need Wildcard (the sequel), but here we are. I need that next book and I know I'm not finding it for a while. What a shame!

Four out of five stars! ( )

Didn't hold my interestenough to finish it. I DNF'ed around the halfway mark

I’m not sure how to review this without spoilers everywhere!!!

This is not what I expected not completely anyway. I can see how you could start the story the way it started and end that way but it still caught me off guard the same.

Now I understand why some people recommend this if you like Ready Player One, but also say it’s completely different because it very much is.

This starts out as fun and games but turns into something much more than that and I can see a lot of parallels to real life here and some of it makes me a little nervous too.

I’m hoping this isn’t too spoilery of a thing to say but this to me was like a fun gamer story turned into big brother is watching you instead. What was once fun and games turns into real life and hidden dangers there with technology kind of idea.

It’s very intense, stressful and a suspenseful fast paced read once you get started.

I would say it’s worth at least checking it out and then you can decide if it’s worth finishing and your kind of story.

I’m still reeling a bit from having barely finished it, but I’m planning to check out the next book to see how the story continues to unfold. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It loses a star for some weird continuity mistakes that kept pulling me out of the story as I was confused as to what was happening. At one point it almost felt like there was a chapter missing that the plot was referencing back to but that I definitely didn't read. But it didn't detract too much from the story or the amazing characters. ( )

3.5 actually. ( )