Warcross

Warcross was just amazing and really exciting. I was hooked right from the start!

I loved the plot that was utterly captivating and gripping. The game worlds of Warcross were really thrilling and all the gaming scenes were written really well.

The characters were also great. Emika was really great at what she did and truly dedicated to her job. Hammie and Roshan were fantastic. Asher was a good team captain. And Hideo was an enigma.

I really enjoyed reading Warcross and can't wait to see what's planned for Wildcard.

"Warcross" begins a fantastic new YA series from Marie Lu. Fans of the Legend trilogy will rejoice in this new, exciting series! Although the situations and settings are different in this book, they are heavily reminiscent of the Legend trilogy (which I loved) and although carry some gravity, the themes are a lot lighter than the Elites trilogy. Here, we follow Emika, a talented hacker who is struggling to make ends meet- largely because of her criminal history. Emika is on the verge of eviction from her apartment, which will thrust her into homelessness. After her last failed attempt at catching a criminal and securing the bounty for catching him, Emika is desperate. When watching a Warcross match, she seizes an opportunity to test a new hack where she can steal a power-up right before it is used. In doing so, she glitches herself into the game and enters the world stage.

Warcross is a virtual reality game played by almost everyone on the planet. The game was created by Hideo (a young inventor) to show what his virtual reality NeuroLink glasses could do, but it quickly launched on its own to rapid popularity. After she glitches into the game, on the verge of the world championships, Hideo recruits Emika for a special job- to help him to catch a hacker (Zero) that is endangering the world championships. Emika's world completely changes overnight as she deals with her new-found fame and her new task.

The book is perfectly paced to introduce Emika, reveal the game and stakes, and to give us some insight into Hideo. The games we get to "watch" are fascinating and easy to follow- incredibly clever and imaginative, quickly getting us involved in the suspense. Lu has really captured me with this new series, and I cannot wait for the next book! All of her books are really fantastic, and this one is no different- I just wish I had the rest of the series now!

Hello you guys! So I have read a few more books that I want to review (one is a reread) so I thought I’d do a Biblio Babble for Warcross by Marie Lu so let’s get into it. shall we?

Title: Warcross (book 1 of 2) Author: Marie Lu Published: September 12th 2017 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers Number Of Pages: 366 Goodreads Synopsis: For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. Needing to make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.
Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika’s whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she’s only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.



“Every locked door has a key. Every problem has a solution.”

Warcross follows seventeen year old Emika Chen whom is a teen struggling financially but when she wakes up one morning with an eviction notice on her door, she trys to make some quick cash by catching a man who bets illegally on Warcross games but ends up failing so she tries to think of another way to get the money she owes.

I guess I should probably explain what Warcross is? Warcross is a virtual reality that works with your brain to make it seem like its real. You know the big chunky VR goggle things? Well that’s what the creator of Warross did, make VR easier. Smaller. Instead of the clunky goggles, it’s like actual glasses. Every year there are official Warcross championships held with only the best players and a few Wildcards. There are different teams and the goal is to get the jewel thing above the other team’s leader’s head. When Emika hacks into the championship to steal a power-up to sale and get the money for her rent, she ends up ACCIDENTALLY showing herself to (basically) THE ENTIRE WORLD.

“They believe that objects have souls. The more beautiful it becomes.”

Right after, she just starts to get dozens of calls from an unknown number, which she ignores obviously, because she’s afraid she’ll be put into jail. In the morning when she wakes up though, her phone is still rings and she has hundreds of text messages from the same number. She finally decides to answer it. When she does, it’s Hideo Tanaka, the creater of Warcross, basically her idol, calling her. I would probably freak out too, someone I’ve looked up to for so long. He asks her to come to Tokyo. TOKYO. And he has paid off all of her debts. Once she arrives, he asks if she’ll work for him by catching someone whom has been hacking into Warcross. They call him Zero. She accepts and is chosen to be a Wildcard, to be on one of the teams. Her team is amazing (Phoenix Riders) and there is also a rather large diverse cast of characters. But slowly, Hideo and Emika grow closer and must I say…I ship them…

Warcross is set in a beautiful and vivid Tokyo and I can’t wait for Wildcard to come out on the 18th. I don’t want to say more due to spoilers, but I absolutely loved this novel and I think most of you will like it too. If you didn’t know, Marie Lu is one of my favorite authors and she did not disappoint me with Warcross.
5 Stars

I have never played the kinds of games mentioned in this book, or even anything similar, so I was a little worried going in that it might be hard to lose myself in the story. But it’s Marie Lu and I’m pretty sure she could write any plot and have me get lost in her words and her story. The plot focused a lot on gaming and technology but it didn’t stray off into an area I, as a non-gamer, couldn’t understand. I enjoyed all the action of the game, the saboteur plot, and the dynamics between the team Emika was chosen to be on as a part of her cover in the Warcross Championships.

Emika was an amazing character. I loved how hard she fought even when it seemed like there was no hope. She refused to give up. She was protective, determined, and smart. She was a brilliant hacker, which helped her a lot of the time but also got her into trouble. Turned out glitching her way into the Warcross Championship was a good thing for her since it led to a job offer and we got to see her at her best, tracking down information on a threat to the Games. With the plot being very heavy on the Warcross game and the set-up to the Championships, Emika was really the only character to get a lot of development. We saw her go from someone who barely trusted anyone to opening up to her team and relying on people other than herself.

I’m excited to see how the supporting characters development in this series. I really liked Emika’s teammates in the Warcross Championships and hope we get to see a lot more of them. They didn’t have a whole lot of screentime(pagetime) but still made an impression. I also liked the flirty banter between Emika and Hideo. It should be interesting to see how all the relationships between these characters progress in the series.

The plot had a lot of action, fast-paced, but still detailed enough so that a non-gamer like me could understand the happenings of the game as they were playing it. It sounded like a cool game. The whole book felt like it would look fantastic on the big screen(if they didn’t ruin it). I ended up finishing this in under two days because I just didn’t want to put it down. I had so many theories and I needed to know if they were right. Plus with Marie Lu, I never want to stop reading until the book is finished.