Warcross was a really interesting book and when this sequel was announced I was really excited to dig into it. This preview gave us a taste for what is to come with Hideo and Emika. I hope that the full novel is as exciting as the first.

I loved this book and hope there will be more! Marie Lu has a way of bringing her characters to life and making the reader feel what they are feeling.

I loved Warcross so I was eager to jump
on this sample to see what Emika and her Team does next. This book picks up sooner after those events, and now I cannot wait to read the full story.

The sneek peek of the book showed the first few chapters of the book and it was jsut as exciting and fast-paced as book one. Personally, I really enjoyed reading about Emika's character and I'm excited to read the rest of the book.

This was only a small preview for the book. I purchased the book and I loved it. There was so many things going on that I could not put down this book. The only thing I didn’t like was that this was the last book in the series. There was still so many questions that were left unanswered. So many things I wanted to see happen between Emika and Hideo.

This finale drops its colossal conclusion and mixed wrap-ups revelations.

The once astounding mind-addicting virtual game becomes the most insidious destruction for humanity. Wildcard will surely drive you to its core full of uncovering truths and deadly tracks. Amazing ventures to follow through and one last shot of end game to watch.

I do want to linger long for this sort of story. There is something, everyone can’t deny having or fantasize to exist in the present. Neurolink (is the ‘something’) goes beyond what technology can offer nowadays, but nevertheless possible if somehow someone accidentally thinks about it (maybe me or you – yeah, you who reads this, I challenge you to make it happens). Its features are really attractively interesting. Imagine you have that certain tech which virtually does calls and play with your faraway friends – whoa, that is amazingly cool. Though, the book gives pointers, too, for its deceiving evil effects if handled inhumanly (I might slip away spoiler if I narrow that ‘deceiving evil effects’, in case you haven’t read the book yet). Thinking outside the box, the idea of this virtual reality seems undeniable coming to us and only worst will happen if we did it out of selfishness.

This surreal grasps of reality contort the human mind of mine and vividly hype my conscious nerdy soul. Marie Lu creatively constructs an unimaginable world where her wild mind works its way and upshots into an incredible matrix of codes of interweaving narrative and vision. She manages everything to pull this off quite satisfyingly. It is fulfilling for me that the book settles for that finality. It deserves all the praises it receives.

One thing I learned, a human can sometimes go beyond his limits no matter what his intentions are good or not when he lost the right path of what really should be and everything will fall down afterward. We think we are doing the good part but we are just concealing the true labor of our actions that affect the population around us. Due to the fact that we are chained to our past which cast seed to bad thinking into fruit of evil, once taken – evil is born.

Wildcard is a great YA book I’ve read that entwines with every turn. Daring and unique. I’m still imagining the things happened that the book left me. You just have to deal with its entire story that delves into deeper sense and the looming fear on the surface. Not bad closure for this duology – one of the series I’ve finished by Marie Lu.

Finishing this book was a personal achievement but you can’t really brag about that at dinner parties. It’s just…the kind of book you read, and it fills you with the wrong things: you use a lot of energy to get through this chapter, and in the end, you feel emptier and less comfortable than ever. This excerpr was a pain in the ass to get through

This book has been so high on my to be read pile and I was so excited to be able to get a sneak peek of the book before it came out. I love how unique this series is between the plot line and the characters. The sneak peek definitely makes me want to pick the rest of the book up right away so I can find out what ends up happening with these characters. The end of book one left us with such a cliffhanger and I feel like the sneak peak at the beginning of book two already shows that things are going to continue getting intense. The characters are a lot of fun to read and I love that each one has their own personality and it shows. Marie Lu does a great job time and time again with fun characters and plots and knows how to keep her readers guessing and wanting more.

Marie Lu is an incredibly talented writer. Emika and Hideo's continuing story is well developed and keeps you thoroughly entertained. I own all her books and re read them often.

Read this preview, then moved on to the full novel which we ordered for our library system. I am enjoying this series very much!

rating 2.5 stars

I'm not really surprised that I didn't love this book, but I am also surprised that I didn't love this book? I really don't know if it's the fact that I read Warcross awhile ago or if the book is just confusing, but I was lost. For like a lot of it.

Again, take this with a grain of salt, but the neurolink didn't make any sense to me? Like I understand it's a sci-fi and we don't have this technology, but I'd still like my sci-fi to be rooted in some sort of reality. There are parts in the second half of the book that I just didn't understand how they were happening??? There was no technical explanation, and all I could think about was how none of it made sense. (If this type of thing doesn't bother you, then I'm sure you'll love it!)

I did not like the love interest in Warcross, and that dislike continued into this book. Their scenes did keep me entertained, but I still feel like it was forced and maybe unnecessary for the story? I guess it was a driving factor for some of Emika's choices, but UGH I was over it.

It's possible I didn't care about the side characters because I didn't remember anything about them from the first book, or it's possible they were just boring. I wasn't invested in their plot lines at all (and there were some scenes where I really should have cared based on what was happening, but I just didn't) and a day after finishing, I barely remember anything about them.

The plot spun out of control at the end and took a turn I was NOT expecting. I'm not mad at it, but it seemed kind of like the book was barely related to the first in this series? I honestly can't tell if this is a critique on the book or not because it didn't necessarily tarnish my reading experience, but just an observation. If you're look for a book with the same tone of Warcross, I don't think this is it.

Overall, I did not hate this book. I think most of my problems with it are personal, and I'm sure a TON of people who read it with love it. I can guarantee a big factor on my experience was the fact that I couldn't remember everything that happened in the first book (I read a recap, but alas it was not enough.) I wouldn't deter you from reading this book if you loved the first one or love YA sci-fi in general.

Wildcard is a phenomenal sequel to Warcross that picks up where Warcross left off. Marie Lu weaves her thoughtful characters in a beautifully imaginative world with action, adventure, and multiple layers. Her story telling ability is also top-notch. While I have read other series by Lu, this series does not disappoint and does not copy her other series. A true sci-fi/ fantasy novel with everything a reader could want in a plot-driven novel.

I only received the first chapters of this one, but loved it so much! Excited to read the full book!

i dont remember reading this book, but according to my goodreads i did. no idea what happened, but i did NOT like it.

After finishing Warcross, I was anxious to read the sequel as soon as I could. While waiting, I enjoyed this excerpt and felt I could already tell that the second book would live up to the first. The second picks up right where the former left off and expertly reminds the reader of where things are without being overly explanatory or didactic. We're immediately reminded that Emika Chen is still in love with Hideo, but she doesn't like that and her feelings are conflicting and complex. The scene of Tokyo, as seen through the glasses, is immediately recreated, and Emika soon meets up with her team, whose characters are just as real they were in Warcross. Within only a dozen or so pages, we're already immersed back into the primary problem Emika and her friends need to take care of, and foreshadowing and introductions to other smaller subplots have already begun to take shape. By the end of this excerpt, we can tell Emika will have even more contact with Zero than she did before in this book, and we meet a new character, Jax, who seems like she'll play a major part in this book. Naturally, the excerpt ends at a cliffhanger, but I was already excited to read the next book. This excerpt was just the appetizer that confirmed it would be as good as I was already expecting.

The Plot

The book opens with Emika in bed with Hideo in a dream. This is my least favourite pairing in any book I’ve ever read, so this already bode well for me. However, the beginning is fast-paced, which I like, and I think that the fight scenes were written well. The moral questions posed in this book were interesting. That would be, they would have been interesting had they been explored with any kind of depth or thought. I don’t want to get into the plot in detail because, quite frankly, it was bad. The plot was so contrived at times I found myself wondering if Marie Lu was playing a joke on us by writing something so intrinsically awful just to see if people would still read it. Emika barely does anything at all in this book, and instead just moves from one plot point to another, basically just relaying messages between different groups of people. Not to mention here ‘talent’ of hacking is still described at its bare minimum. Furthermore, the first half of the book was incredibly slow moving and could probably have been at least five times shorter than it actually was.



The Characters

It’s just too bad that I still find that not even one ounce of me is able to care about what happens to Emika. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, having rainbow hair is not a character trait, and yet that is the most interesting thing about Emika, albeit highly annoying. I honestly believe I might like this series a lot more had it been written from the point of view of a more interesting character.

But, what other characters are there? There’s Hideo who was completely dull and lacklustre. Zero who had no personality. Emika’s team mates who, for the life of me, I can’t remember a single name – so that shows you how memorable they are. Jax was pretty cool and had some cool moral ambiguity about her and would get everything done so much faster than the amazing Emika Chen.

I also want to give kudos to Lu (I know, what?!) for including a non-binary character with the pronouns they/them. However, that’s the only thing I can remember about this character, I can’t even remember their name, and they were around for an incredibly short scene before we forgot all about them again. So, yeah.



Let’s talk about Warcross.

No, not the first book, the game. This duology is centred around a game but you would never have guessed it. The first book gave us the opening ceremony, which was just fine, and one scene of the game actually being played. If I remember correctly, we don’t even get to see an actual game of Warcross in this book. Sure there’s that kind of fight scene between Emika and Zero, but I still don’t fully understand how the game works. For a series that revolves around this game, I feel like I should a) have a deeper understanding of how it works and b) understand why the game is so popular.



Ready Player One Wannabe

I will stand by my previous statement: this world is a Ready Player One wannabe. It seems that Lu (may or may not have) read Ernest Cline’s 2013 novel, enjoyed it, saw how successful and popular it was and thought ‘I could do that’. Unfortunately, it seems that Lu has no understanding or further research of how VR (visual reality) works, and what makes a game, or game world, interesting and unique. Even her use of AI (artificial intelligence) seems shallow, barely scraping the surface of what it is and how it works in her world.



The Writing

I also have a few comments to make about some of Lu’s writing choices, so here goes.

“A dragon. As big as a whale.” Okay, a metaphor, sure. But what kind of whale? Are we talking blue whale, here, or beluga?
“I nod wordlessly.” Yes. That’s generally what nodding is.
“…an impossible blanket of stars can still be clearly seen against the sky, coating it in a film of gold-and-white glitter.” I just want to talk about the bit in bold here. I just feel like describing the night sky as ‘glitter’ is not only child-like, but so cheap. I just, ugh, it feels like plastic, just hard and an easy go-to, but destroys the possibility of something beautiful.
There was a visual of a progress percentage bar used, but only once. I’m not wholly against the use of these kinds of things in books, but at least make them consistent and use them throughout. Here it just felt out of place, almost like an afterthought to make this bit of the book a little bit more interesting.
These are just a few examples, but overall the writing seemed to have improved slightly from Warcross, and as such was not quite as torturous to read.



Conclusion

Overall I definitely enjoyed this more than I expected, but it still wasn’t a great read for me.

This wasn't quite as good as Warcross but still an okay read and a nice to have a wrap up for the series. I think the plot took a little to long to get going and for some reason didn't really feel like starting point from where we left on in Warcross. I also felt like the game of Warcross was missing from this book and that was kind of sad. It was a super fun part of the first book and while we still had some of the camaraderie of the teams that wasn't as solid and fun.

It was nice to find out what had happened to Zero and see his story play out but even that was a little slow. By the end I was glad to have read it but didn't feel the same excitement as I did with the first book.

I read Warcross a year ago, and loved it so much. Wildcard appears to have all the promise of Warcross with lots more excitement to come.

Since this review is based only an excerpt, I obviously can't comment for the whole novel. However, this first section just seemed be missing that spark from the first book? Wildcard didn't seem nearly as exciting, as thrilling as Warcross had been. I was less invested in Emika as a character, and found myself having to push through while reading this excerpt. I was pretty excited for Wildcard too, since I thought Warcross was really fun and interesting, but this excerpt just seemed rather bland. I don't think I will be picking up the completed work as I am simply not invested in these characters or the world anymore.
That said, I loved seeing places like Paris and Tokyo in literature. Definitely loving the diverse rep and diverse locations. It just makes everything that much cooler.
Still have faith in Marie Lu as a writer, and will be keeping an eye out for what she writes next.

I can't wait to read the final book since this sampler has me dying!!! Emika Chen is one of my fave characters of all time and I can't wait to discover the secrets Zero has to reveal!