My Rating ~ Four and a half stars

4half-gold-stars copy

TO BE RELEASED: 18 September 2018

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers (Penguin Random House)

Format: ARC Paperback

Pages: 350

RRP: AU$22.99

Source: Received as an ARC for review from Penguin Random House Australia

Blurb

Emika Chen barely made it out of the Warcross Championships alive. Now that she knows the truth behind Hideo’s new NeuroLink algorithm, she can no longer trust the one person she’s always looked up to, who she once thought was on her side.

Determined to put a stop to Hideo’s grim plans, Emika and the Phoenix Riders band together, only to find a new threat lurking on the neon-lit streets of Tokyo. Someone’s put a bounty on Emika’s head, and her sole chance for survival lies with Zero and the Blackcoats, his ruthless crew. But Emika soon learns that Zero isn’t all that he seems–and his protection comes at a price.

Caught in a web of betrayal, with the future of free will at risk, just how far will Emika go to take down the man she loves?

Review

Many thanks to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Note: This is book 2, so there may be spoilers for book 1 present in this review!

Wildcard starts not long after Warcross finished. Emika and her Warcross team are some of the lucky few who are still using the beta lenses to connect to the Nurolink, and therefore have avoided Hideo’s algorithm. However, the countdown is on for all lenses to switch over and Emika is in a race against time to try and work out whether there’s a way to stop it, before she too is under Hideo’s control. When she discovers there’s a bounty on her head, and assassins come looking for her, it’s Zero who offers her protection. She still doesn’t trust him, and definitely doesn’t trust his crew…but does she have a choice?

This was such a fantastic follow up to Warcross. To be honest, I’m always nervous reading sequels to books I loved so much, because I rarely find them as exciting as the first book, but Wildcard still managed to bring it to the table! We get a lot of Zero’s background story in this book, which I loved finding out about. All my favourite Phoenix Riders also still played big parts, which was amazing. Marie Lu did such a skilful job of incorporating so many little twists and memory flashbacks that pieced all the mysteries of book one together. The backstories aren’t just limited to Zero either, we get some nice little glimpses into Tremaine and Roshan’s – while also discovering why they really broke up in the first place.

the only slightly disappointing thing was that there was a distinct lack of actual Warcross game playing. I don’t know why this was disappointing to me, I hate sports and it feels like sports, but Warcross was just so cool, I wanted to see a bit more gameplay!

Due to the amount of twists and surprise reveals, I don’t want to say too much more here, but I definitely enjoyed being back in the world of Warcross!