So what’s the game now? This, or the life I used to know?
When Miki Jones is pulled from her life, pulled through time and space into some kind of game—her carefully controlled life spirals into chaos. In the game, she and a team of other teens are sent on missions to eliminate the Drau, terrifying and beautiful alien creatures. There are no practice runs, no training, and no way out. Miki has only the guidance of secretive but maddeningly attractive team leader Jackson Tate, who says the game isn’t really a game, that what Miki and her new teammates do now determines their survival, and the survival of every other person on this planet. She laughs. He doesn’t. And then the game takes a deadly and terrifying turn.
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Rush, Eve Silver's debut novel, is a very unique take on an impending alien invasion. The novel follows Miki and other teens who are pulled from their every day lives to participate in missions, which are set up much like the missions in video games, complete with kill points and health/life meters, where they must exterminate an alien race called the Drau that seeks to take over planet Earth. At first, Miki is sure she's dreaming - or that the whole experience is some sort of elaborate hoax - but she soon discovers that the stakes are real... and deadly.
One of the things I love about Rush is that it has obvious appeal for a wide variety of readers. There are video game elements, aliens, possible romance, lots of action, a fast pace, and an interesting cover that's relatively gender neutral. I like to think that boys could just as easily carry this book around (without fear of being teased for a girly cover) as a girl reader.
Rush starts off quickly paced and never slows. In many ways, it read like a video game feels. In video games that engage players in missions, there is always something to pay attention to or something happening, information is slowly revealed at specific points, and there is always the fear or a surprise attack and character death: Rush is kind of like watching someone else play a video game with your character. You're invested in the characters and the story's events and you're constantly trying to snatch the controls back, but you can only look on and hope for the best.
I'm hoping for more detail and information about the Drau in the future installments of The Game. By the end of Rush, readers have gathered some information about the players of The Game and their mission, but there are still many holes. Hopefully these things will be fleshed out in the subsequent books, since readers have met and formed bonds with the the players, which seemed to the be the focus of this first installment.
I'll definitely be reading Eve Silver's next book. I'm very curious about what will happen to Miki next... things were really intense by the end of this first book. She has a lot of information to work through, but she was definitely shaping up to be a badass by the end of Rush!
One of the things I love about Rush is that it has obvious appeal for a wide variety of readers. There are video game elements, aliens, possible romance, lots of action, a fast pace, and an interesting cover that's relatively gender neutral. I like to think that boys could just as easily carry this book around (without fear of being teased for a girly cover) as a girl reader.
Rush starts off quickly paced and never slows. In many ways, it read like a video game feels. In video games that engage players in missions, there is always something to pay attention to or something happening, information is slowly revealed at specific points, and there is always the fear or a surprise attack and character death: Rush is kind of like watching someone else play a video game with your character. You're invested in the characters and the story's events and you're constantly trying to snatch the controls back, but you can only look on and hope for the best.
I'm hoping for more detail and information about the Drau in the future installments of The Game. By the end of Rush, readers have gathered some information about the players of The Game and their mission, but there are still many holes. Hopefully these things will be fleshed out in the subsequent books, since readers have met and formed bonds with the the players, which seemed to the be the focus of this first installment.
I'll definitely be reading Eve Silver's next book. I'm very curious about what will happen to Miki next... things were really intense by the end of this first book. She has a lot of information to work through, but she was definitely shaping up to be a badass by the end of Rush!
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Be sure to check out the book trailer too!
Katherine Tegen Books, June 2013, Hardcover, ISBN: 9780062192134, 352 pgs.
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