Reboot by Amy Tintera Series: Reboot #1
Published by HarperTeen
Published: May 7, 2013
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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 years old, 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.
The perfect soldier is done taking orders.
I bought Reboot a while ago and like most books, I actually forgot I had it. It wasn’t until I started seeing chatter about its sequel Rebel that I remembered and was finally inspired to read it. And once again I was happy to have done it. Reboot was more than I expected. It was action packed and had a great romance and a great dystopian feel. It was an entertaining read with great characters and a pleasure to read.
Reboot is a dystopian novel mainly about Wren, a 17-year-old girl that was killed when she was 12 and rebooted back to life 172 later, the longest time lapse for a reboot ever. For 5 years Wren has done everything HARC, the human organization controlling the reboots has asked. She’s been the best at everything because she doesn’t have feelings left and she was okay with that. That is until Callum, a reboot dead for only 22 minutes, comes into her life. What was now black and white for Wren has taken on a whole new shading and has given Wren a whole lot more to feel and think about. Suddenly Wren has to make decisions she never thought she would and take actions because before she had nothing to lose and now she has everything.
When I first heard of Reboot I will admit I was skeptical because basically the rebooted is just another word for zombie and I’m not a huge fan of zombie books. But the truth is that Reboot is very far away from a zombie book and that is credited to the author. Instead of giving us the living dead Tintera humanized these people that were brought back. She didn’t make them the gross kind of zombies on shows like The Walking Dead. She made them likable and characters you wanted to root for. That was the great thing about Callum. He brought a refreshing life to Wren. He had this charisma to him that you couldn’t help but live and it brought an expected love for Wren who was really closed off and cold in the beginning. Honestly, I think that is what I liked most about this story. The character development was really a high light for me. The plot was also really solid and had a lot of tense moments that I don’t want to give away for those that haven’t read yet. But all of it together really just worked.
Reboot is a book about breaking down your walls and living, even when you are technically dead, and thinking for yourself. It was a fascinating read that takes place in a strange dystopian society that is a joy to read. I look forward to Tintera’s follow-up Rebel and what other stories she will have in store for us in the future.
Now I can’t wait to see what you think of Rebel! 🙂 Great review – it’s one of my favorite reads of last year. I love the pacing, the new take on zombies, the romance; basically everything!
I stayed away from Reboot because of the zombie thing – I can’t stand zombies. The only book I read that was even remotely close to zombies was actually about a craze-inducing sickness, so I guess I really haven’t read anything zombie at all. Either way, I’m glad you enjoyed this one! I think it comes out in paperback soon; I’ll pick up a copy sometime 🙂
It definitely isn’t what you expect zombies to be Kayla. It is actually the total opposite of what you would think. It’s a great story about survival and a really great love story. I would totally recommend it.