Review Detail

SHUTDOWN has some major improvements from the first two books in the series. It has far more original twists and ideas; it doesn’t have the same patchwork feel as GLITCH and OVERRIDE.

Zoe was so much more genuine in this book as well, her motives and reactions to events made sense most of the time. She also finally got to go out and take care of some people, which was refreshing and kind of fun, although the amount of people she had to take care of was a tad over the top (and when I say ‘take care of’ here, I mean beat the stuffing out of). The way things got rapped up with the poor lobotomized Adrian (Zoe’s boyfriend) was actually really clever and, to be honest, pretty sweet. Sadly, the other characters in general, especially the minor ones, weren’t as good. They seemed so much more immature than their circumstances called for.

SHUTDOWN overall had a bit of a seesawing problem, swapping between light bits with lots of the aforementioned immature characters and more intense, emotional pieces with just Zoe and Adrian. Some of this is necessary, of course, but in this case it felt a bit like cheating when more of the light bits came along. The ending is on the anticlimactic side and sort of disappointing; it felt rushed, it’s one of those and-then-they-slew-the-dragon-and-lived-happily-ever-after endings, you know the type. There was so much setting up to it, three books almost, and then you blink and it’s gone. One other thing that just sort of bothered me was that Zoe will get really hurt or tired, so it seems as though she’ll pass out any second or something, but then someone comes along and starts talking to her and she’s just fine again, and everyone else seems to think she’ll be okay for a while longer too. It just didn’t make much sense.

Overall SHUTDOWN is a good book, it knows where it’s going and it gets there. It’s got some good romance without being too physical, which lots of YA books seem to have a problem with. The Glitch series, especially SHUTDOWN, felt sort of like a more sy-fi-y Hunger Games, in its style, so if you liked those, you might want to try these.