Me on Reboot

Title: Reboot
Author: Amy Tintera
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Publisher: HarperTeen (HarperCollins imprint)

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, 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.

Reboot is dark, dangerous, and deadly. It's an intriguing look at humanity, what sets apart those with emotion and those without, and how both sides react in life-threatening situations. It's also a look at how far some will go, how far they will follow orders before they decide that the better option, the right option, is to keep those they are connected to safe. To follow or to fight back, that is the choice Wren is forced to make.

Wren's humanity was sucked away during those 178 minutes when she was dead. What was left behind was a fighting machine with no emotions, no desire to laugh or cry. She's practical, straight-forward, stoic, and doesn't take crap from others. Callum is a weakness in her eyes, dead only for a measly 22 minutes. He's nowhere near as strong or as fast as her, he'll never heal as fast as her, and the odds of him surviving long are stacked against him. But she doesn't necessarily want to see him fail. She doesn't want to see anyone fail. Wren might not be as emotional, or as human, as Callum or as some of the other Reboots, but she doesn't want to see anyone die.

When all the emotion and humanity inside someone is gone, what's left? Are they still human? Is that what makes us human, emotion and affection and laughter? If that's true, then what is Wren? No tears fall from her eyes, laughter doesn't escape from her lips, but she's still a seventeen-year-old girl struggling to live, fighting every day to keep living, fighting to keep the world safe.

To become a Reboot, you need to die and come back to life. But what are they? Are they zombies, the dead risen again? Or are they the next stage in evolution?

Action-packed, fast-paced, heart-pounding, this book was oh so thrilling. Besides Wren's normal Reboot life, besides the odd connection with Callum, something is going on under Wren's nose. Something is happening to the other Reboots, and Wren won't dare stop until she stops it first.

(I acquired an advance copy of this book at ALA Midwinter.)