Reboot (Reboot, #1)

by Amy Tintera

THEY ALWAYS SCREAMED.

Maybe I shouldn’t play favorites, but I think this is my second favorite opening line of any of my books. The drama! You know something is about to go down when a book opens with a line like this. Myveryfavorite is the first line from LISTEN FOR THE LIE, my adult debut novel, coming out March 5 – "A podcaster has decided to ruin my life, so I'm buying a chicken.” I can’t believe it’s been 11 years since REBOOT. This book changed my life in so many ways – I became a published author, a full-time writer, and I made so many new writer friends. I’m so thankful to all of the readers who picked up REBOOT, reviewed it, or came to see me at an event all those years ago.Wren and Callum still hold a special place in my heart, and I even got a REBOOT tattoo a few years ago! Three birds with the numbers “178” inside of them. (Callum would understand me only getting Wren’s number, because he’s great like that.) Thank you to everyone who read Wren and Callum’s story, and I hope you’ll give Lucy and Ben and LISTEN FOR THE LIE a chance as well!

I turned to go, my eyes catching Ever’s. She was smiling, her head cocked to the side, then she nodded as if to say, Good for you.

The friendship between Ever and Wren is one of the most important parts of the book. Friendships between girls, and all their complexities, has always been one of the most important parts of my books – Wren and Ever, Em and Violet in RUINED, Clara and Madison in ALL THESE MONSTERS, Maisie and Hadley in THE Q, Lucy and Savvy in LISTEN FOR THE LIE. When I first started writing REBOOT, I hadn’t created the character of Ever yet. But as I wrote the first chapter, I realized that Wren needed someone in her life, another girl to flesh out her character and make her story feel real. Wren likes to pretend she’s an island who needs no one, when in reality Ever is one of the only reasons she survived HARC.

A few hundred miles in the middle of Texas was all that was left of the large country my parents knew as children. HARC managed to save only Texas from the virus and the Reboot attacks that followed.

It amused me to make Texas the only state that survived the apocalypse, because people in Texas have such pride in their state. I also just really like setting books in Texas, even if I don’t live there anymore (I grew up in Austin, and lived there again for a while as an adult before settling down in Los Angeles). It’s such an interesting state, almost with its own personality.

Do that thing where you look blank, like you have no feelings at all.” “I think that’s just my face.”

I think this is the line that I see quoted from the book most often – and it’s my favorite! I loved writing a character who had suppressed her emotions to such an extent she thought she didn’t have any. I think we have very specific expectations for how women should show emotion, and it makes people very uncomfortable when they encounter a girl who is quite reserved and stoic. I created Wren with this in mind – people think she’s a monster because she’s so closed-off, but, to me, she’s just dealing with trauma the only way she can.

He had to give his helmet a little shove and dip his head down to kiss me, but I didn’t believe he was actually going to do it until I felt his lips gently press against mine. My body jolted in surprise and I felt him smile against my lips.

I love writing romance subplots. I think there’s so much character work you can do when you incorporate romance into a book – characters can grow or regress, their priorities might shift, they might start making some terrible choices. Wren’s character arc in this book is partially her discovering that shedoeshave emotions, even if everyone has told her otherwise, and giving her a strong romance arc helps this discovery enormously. I also really love writing wildly inconvenient romances – this passage is their first kiss, and it’s not really the best time to be kissing! They’re on the run from HARC! But they justhaveto stop and kiss, even if it’s not convenient. (If you’ve read RUINED, you know that I really went wild with the inconvenient romance plot in that one. And you will certainly find some of that in LISTEN FOR THE LIE as well!)

There’s more sky in Texas, darlin’. You ain’t ever gonna know anything else, but look up and appreciate it occasionally anyway.”

It’s true! Gotta love that Texas sky!