Saturday, October 21, 2017

Review: Warcross


Warcross (Warcross #1)

by 

Positives

The World Building
The world building in the novel is absolutely fantastic. I loved how Lu builds up the world and transports us to a futuristic Japan. I also loved how she focuses on the details in certain areas that really helps build up the plot and the life of the characters. 

The First Half
The first half of the novel really pulls you in as it is follows a natural progression built on just the right amount of suspense, action and world building. I was invested in the characters and the story before I even knew it!

Emika
Emika is a character that is really well defined and it's so easy to relate to her. If you've ever played a game in your life and felt that you weren't good enough, I think you will find a little bit of yourself in Emika. I also liked how she stood up for herself and did things without seeking validation for all her actions. 

Warcross and The Gaming World
This is one of the biggest positives of the book. I loved how well Lu built up the fictional game of Warcross and the challenges were some of my favourite parts of the novel. I wanted there to be more tournaments because they were so much fun and so unique. Warcross seems to be a fascinating game and I wanted to know more about it and the world in it as well as the dark net. 

Negatives

Insta-Love
While I did not notice this immediately, the novel does focus on a romantic relationship mostly built on hero worship and instant love. While one-sided affection based on hero worship made sense, the fact that the romantic interest was mutual did not. (I'm sorry I'm trying to avoid spoilers!) The romance seemed very rushed and built on a house of cards and I predict a love triangle in the future. 

Predictable Storyline
While many who read Lu's work for the first time will find the end shocking, the fact that I had read Lu's work before made the last few chapters extremely predictable. Lu always has some kind of shocking twist towards the end of her first novels which is why I was able to predict the climax of this novel. There were other plot points which were also very predictable, if you're new to Lu's writing style you might not be able to predict them but I felt that The Young Elites managed to shock me more than this novel. I felt that a lot of the plot and the tropes were used by Lu previously and just repackaged in Warcross and I found that to be very problematic. 

Pacing problems
While the first half was at the right pace and built up the story very well, I felt the second half was extremely rushed. I also felt that the narrative took certain things for granted and some adversities were overcome too quickly especially the final tournament. Alliances were also formed very quickly (which might be addressed in the sequel though)

Overall, I had high expectations and though the first half lived upto those expectations, the second half did not. It should be noted that this book did manage to get me out of a very bad reading slump but I am not dying to read the sequel. I felt that the premise had a lot of promise and hope that maybe more gaming world novels will be released in the future.

My Rating:


Toss up between 3 and 3. 5 
(While I am very glad I picked it up, I was extremely disappointed by the second half)


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