Review: Warcross

Warcross by Marie Lu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Emika Chen unexpectedly finds herself in the middle of the world's biggest gaming event, working undercover for the game's developer to stop a hacker, which proves to be bigger and more dangerous than she ever imagined.

When I first read the summary for this book it sounded a little like Earnest Cline's Ready Player One, but without the cool '80s pop-culture references, and I suppose it is. They both take place within the context of a worldwide game everyone plays and feature lone teenagers just trying to survive eventually learning to trust and work with others, and involve intrigue, danger, and romance. But there are two key differences: in Warcross the emphasis is on hacking rather than gaming, and there is no great quest for a huge reward at the end, but rather a worldwide team championship and a reward for catching a hacker. And no cool pop-culture references.

The pacing seemed just a little bit off, as the beginning of the story seemed to go on and on, and then the middle ans the "end" seemed a bit rushed. While Emika's character was fairly well developed, I would have preferred more development of some of the other characters and more depth in her relationships with her Warcross teammates. I was also frustrated by the lack of an ending and wish I had known this was going to be a duology before I started reading it. I did not find this book as good or enjoyable as the aforementioned Ready Player One, but RPO was written for my demographic while Warcross was not.

However, I do think many teens and tweens would enjoy this book, particularly fans of Lu's previous books and those interested in gaming, hacking, adventure, and intrigue. An understanding of coding or hacking is not needed to follow the story as no details are given, only vague references, which makes the story more readily accessible to a wider audience, but may be frustrating or annoying to those who do have an advanced understanding of coding. Those who would prefer more details relating to the hacks and code should check out Cory Doctorow's books.

The release date and title of the sequel are currently uncertain, but possibly by the end of 2018 and a speculative title of "Darkcross" has been mentioned on Goodreads.

Marie Lu has written several other YA sci-fi and speculative fiction books, including the very popular Legend series.

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