Rebel is an inspired conclusion to Reboot

I have to say it’s been a while since I’ve found a series of books I read as quickly as Amy Tintera’s Reboot series. The conclusion was just epic enough in Rebel to keep me turning the pages, but not so much that I was overwhelmed by everything that happened. Rebel struck a perfect balance between action and pacing.

Let me kick things off by saying that this series has a bad rep. Not because it’s bad, but because some people are just overly critical. Yes, there is a lot of kissing and handholding (as I often find there are in such YA books). Yes, some of the tropes were predictable (again, as YA often is). But these are things I’ve come to expect from the genre, particularly when the protagonist is female.

So sorry, haters, but Reboot and Rebel do not belong on the DNF list. I don’t care what you say. 

I’ve read some bad YA fiction (really bad, see this review if you need proof), and this series was nowhere near that!

Rebel, by Amy Tintera, is about how Wren and Callum are forced into a series of situations they are grossly ill-equipped for. They don’t have the knowledge of what’s going on in the world. They don’t have the weapons they need to fight back. All they have are the hope that their escape to the Reboot reservation will give them the freedom they seek.

Which (spoiler) it doesn’t.

Okay, so this isn’t really a spoiler either. If you read the back of the book, it says as much. The real question the two of them face is, “What do we do when we know that reboots and humans are about to go to war against each other again?” The first time the war devastated the world. Callum — the more human of the two of them — insists that they need to help both sides. He wants the humans to survive. He wants the reboots to be free. And if I’m being totally honest, he was more interesting as a protagonist.

Callum really shines in this book.

He isn’t fawning over Wren (well, not completely). He struggles to find his place, as the weakest of all reboots, while also asserting his influence.

Callum is the underdog we love reading about.

In the end, as one would expect from any YA dystopian series, the protagonist(s) rise up, organize the rebellion, and take down the big bad guys.

I just have to note, my favorite moments from this book completely belonged to Callum.

I pulled my gun out and raised it as I heard the Reboots stop behind me. I fixed my eyes on Kyle’s.

“You’re going to want to get out of my way.”

Few books have given me the chills, and fewer still with just one line. I actually had to put the book down because I really wanted — needed — to absorb that moment. I wasn’t ready to move away from it. In fact, I haven’t felt a chill like that since The Wheel of Time: Fires of Heaven. “Kneel, or be knelt.”

The next moment comes when Callum emerges from a fog of chaos with a young boy on his back. I don’t want to give away anything else about this moment so you can experience it for yourself, but I smiled because this was the Callum I wanted to see. Where Wren was an unstoppable machine (much like a Terminator), Callum was more of an unsung hero — until that moment.

The two really big issues I had with this book were probably not really that big, but they stood out to me.

First, I’m not a fan of authors deciding later in a series to use switching perspectives. It feels inconsistent and a bit like cheating. I would rather see it right from book one or not at all. But please, authors everywhere, don’t do it in the middle of a series. To me, it’s akin to padding a college paper with ramblings or extra spaces between sentences, like you’re just trying to fill the page. Divergent did it in the final book and I hated it there as well.

Second, the fight against Micah — the Reboot reservation leader — was extremely anti-climactic and felt like it ended almost as soon as it began. I felt a little cheated and really wanted to see him put up a bigger fight.

With all of this aside, if I were to rate this series, I would give it four stars — and that’s only because the second book changes the way the story is told. Keep it consistent!