Review: Reboot by Amy Tintera

Release date: May 7, 2013
Author info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 365
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher provided for review
Buy the book: Barnes & Noble | Amazon | The Book Depository

Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders.

I love dystopians, but I've definitely felt a bit of exhaustion with the genre. That is likely why I never picked this up when it originally came out, and really why I was reluctant to read it even when I got copies of both Reboot and Rebel, its sequel. Sometimes I need to smack myself for not picking things up sooner, though, and this is one of those cases, y'all. Reboot is action-packed, original, wholly enjoyable, and a great debut that makes me terribly excited to see what its sequel holds.

Wren 178 is a really interesting narrator, because she has a cool progression. It's a big difference between the voice you read in the first pages is vastly different from that at the end of the book. At the beginning, she's cold and ruthless, taking down humans without regret. You see flickers of emotions, anger mostly, but Wren represses them. But as she opens up to Callum and allows herself to feel things aside from anger and pain, Wren is a whole new person.

I also really liked the kind of power reversal of Wren and Callum's relationship. Yes, the same kind of thing happens in other books, but Reboot does a really good job of making each powerful in their own way. It's simply that Wren, the girl, is physically strong. It never undermines Callum or what he can do and his personality, but instead makes them equal in their relationship. I liked it. A lot.

I seriously enjoyed Reboot. It's so filled with action and has some really sweet moments between Wren and Callum. In some ways I'm sad I didn't read it closer to its release, but in other ways I'm so pleased to have the sequel sitting on my shelf so I can read it immediately.

About the author:

Amy Tintera grew up in Texas and now lives in Los Angeles, California. She has degrees in journalism and film and can usually be found staring into space, dreaming up ways to make her characters run for their lives.