LifeL1K3 by Jay Kristoff
By now, I have become a convert at the cult of Jay Kristoff, the masterweaver of fantasy and sci-fi tales full of lyrical beauty, wickedly cool action adventures and heart-wrenching plot-twists that will keep you yearning for more, as he continues to churn out novels by the dozen [ I mean, does this guy even sleep? 'Hell no, Sleep is for the weak!']
This is my fifth book by Jay Kristoff and yes I see the repetitive patterns - young girl protagonist with a secret history behind her birth, growing up pangs like either a finishing school or the loyal friendships or hesitant first loves along with tons of ubercool world-building elements, that ever-present humor that can either have you rolling your eyes in the head or rolling on the floor in splits, cinematic action sequences unfolding in slo-mo and an unbelievable ending as tension levels mount beyond Mount Everest to erupt in a gut-wrenching reveal that will have you gasping, in disbelief and terror.
LIFEL1K3 features ALL of this. A big check! against all these recurring themes but this is what Jay revels in. He sticks the knife in your gut - Using these tropes and sometimes highly irritating slangs invented for the sake of that series - and then twists the damn knife, with that cliffhanger ending. Set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world where there's been a robot-uprising that has led to catastrophic consequences making "Kalyfornia" an island cut off from the rest of the world, we are introduced to our protagonist, Eve Carpenter in the backdrop of a post-modern robotic gladiator games known as Dome fighting. Eve is a fierce young girl who's an unbeaten champion in the Dome, demolishing "logikas" or Titan robots beating them to pulp with her cunning and agility and a self-built fighter robot. She's doing this to make money for her sick grandfather's medicine expenses. But the latest fight goes a bit sideways and it is revealed that in a desperate moment of self preservation, Eve can actually fry electrical circuits with just her mind! Marking her out as an abomination or what the people call a "Deviate".
Bringing down a horde of faith militants known as the Brotherhood who are out to cleanse the world of such vile people and also putting her right in the crosshair of a few others, who have been trying to track her down for the last couple of years. First up is this beautiful boy with flawless skin and olive green eyes, a not-boy who is an android or as they call it, 'Lifelike' named Ezekiel. Right up close on his heels comes this bounty hunter known only as Preacher. And that forces Eve, along with her best friend Lemon Fresh - an orphan taken in by Eve and her grandfather Silas - and her cyborg dog Kaiser with a little robot appropriately named Cricket, to try and escape the wrath of all these folks descending right down on her home. Ezekiel however brings in a secret that devastates Eve, turning her whole life upside down and she sets out into the desolate, broken remains of the world infected by wide spread radiation and hunted by evil cyborgs, men of faith, unruly mad gangs of the road to unravel her past and also to build out her uncertain future.
LifeL1K3 is an "inspired" novel. Jay's inspirations are very clear to the discernible mind of a sharp reader and yet, he writes with such passion that you are willing to suspend your disbelief, let go of this transgressions to sink into this bumpy wild ride - of a young girl discovering herself through bonds of undying friendship, dreamy love and steely determination. Eve aka Ana of old, is a great character to be inside of as she struggles to understand her past and her destiny. She is spirited, an unbroken colt of the free lands and is willing to spit in the face of death if it serves her friends or family. Eve goes through several cycles of betrayal and this has sadly scarred her heart and her beliefs about this world, where truth never stays the same. It's a major part of her character arc evolution and I am not sure, if I still like all the changes she's gone through, frankly.
Ably supporting her in all her mad ventures is this small girl Lemon Fresh with a big heart and a bigger personality. Full of brim and vigor, colorful and sassy to the core, Lemon actually was my favorite character in the lot. I couldn't pinpoint her age but she brings all the cheek and sass of a young girl on the brink of her new adulthood as is reflective of her thinking and 'annoying' slang laden language. But her relentless bravery in the face of unimaginable dangers, will win hearts among the readers. The next big character of course, is the namesake of the novel - the not-boy or lifelike Ezekiel. He's a mirror to the past life horrors of Eve but is he also the key to a future, where Eve can redeem herself through his unrelenting love and devotion? I wish, they had a POV from his angle. For most parts, he comes across as the noble white knight which kind of made him a bit boring. But he's a sleek killing machine and his action sequences were highly enjoyable.
The antagonists are many - and their motivations for being evil, I thought, was very well done indeed. With compelling backstories that have turned them down the path of this 'evil redemption' and with that sick wicked twist in the plot now, Deviate is going to be interesting book to get to. The plot is very fast moving but now that I dissect the same - there wasn't a lot to hang onto. Hints about Eve's past are laid on pretty thick right from the beginning and so wasn't much of a surprise package. There are gun fights galore - including a Mad Max Fury Road wild chase sequence through a glass-storm radiation filled desert. Yeah, you read that right. This world is crazy and Jay Kristoff's vivid imagination is at work in full blast here as well. The world subject to a robotic carnage, is brought to life on the pages really well. Some of the imagery is fascinating and adds to the grim sense of despair that hangs to this world. Destruction is the order of the day. The robots are intelligent and there is a thinly veiled attempt at "questioning" the basis of what makes us human? The androids are made in the image of human beings but of course, are better in every possible way. The question that begs to be answered then, is Nurture greater than Nature? Because Jay's androids have egos bigger than the craters of the moon. Emotional imbalances galore. Surely that isn't 'engineered'? The names in this book are all Biblical (including a bounty hunter who calls himself Preacher and reads a Bible before blowing off holes in the hearts of his enemies!) and there are references to the fallen paradise that humanity have been subject to. So clearly Jay was gunning for something bigger here that will make us pause - even as today AI is taking over jobs all across the world. Sigh - that is a bigger canvas and I don't want to dip my brush in there, just yet.
Overall, I still like Mia Corvere and the running series of Nevernight (Oh by the way - DarkDawn is coming in Sept!!) much better than Eve and Lemon's together forever war against corrupt androids and AI systems. But I will be looking to their further adventures in the next book, DEV1AT3 - releasing in Oct. A great feat of imagination. A fun, fascinating adrenaline ride introducing us to some lovable bunch of heroic characters but somehow, I felt a bit let down in that shallow treatment of a lot of interesting questions that spiral off from this series premise.
This is my fifth book by Jay Kristoff and yes I see the repetitive patterns - young girl protagonist with a secret history behind her birth, growing up pangs like either a finishing school or the loyal friendships or hesitant first loves along with tons of ubercool world-building elements, that ever-present humor that can either have you rolling your eyes in the head or rolling on the floor in splits, cinematic action sequences unfolding in slo-mo and an unbelievable ending as tension levels mount beyond Mount Everest to erupt in a gut-wrenching reveal that will have you gasping, in disbelief and terror.
LIFEL1K3 features ALL of this. A big check! against all these recurring themes but this is what Jay revels in. He sticks the knife in your gut - Using these tropes and sometimes highly irritating slangs invented for the sake of that series - and then twists the damn knife, with that cliffhanger ending. Set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world where there's been a robot-uprising that has led to catastrophic consequences making "Kalyfornia" an island cut off from the rest of the world, we are introduced to our protagonist, Eve Carpenter in the backdrop of a post-modern robotic gladiator games known as Dome fighting. Eve is a fierce young girl who's an unbeaten champion in the Dome, demolishing "logikas" or Titan robots beating them to pulp with her cunning and agility and a self-built fighter robot. She's doing this to make money for her sick grandfather's medicine expenses. But the latest fight goes a bit sideways and it is revealed that in a desperate moment of self preservation, Eve can actually fry electrical circuits with just her mind! Marking her out as an abomination or what the people call a "Deviate".
Bringing down a horde of faith militants known as the Brotherhood who are out to cleanse the world of such vile people and also putting her right in the crosshair of a few others, who have been trying to track her down for the last couple of years. First up is this beautiful boy with flawless skin and olive green eyes, a not-boy who is an android or as they call it, 'Lifelike' named Ezekiel. Right up close on his heels comes this bounty hunter known only as Preacher. And that forces Eve, along with her best friend Lemon Fresh - an orphan taken in by Eve and her grandfather Silas - and her cyborg dog Kaiser with a little robot appropriately named Cricket, to try and escape the wrath of all these folks descending right down on her home. Ezekiel however brings in a secret that devastates Eve, turning her whole life upside down and she sets out into the desolate, broken remains of the world infected by wide spread radiation and hunted by evil cyborgs, men of faith, unruly mad gangs of the road to unravel her past and also to build out her uncertain future.
LifeL1K3 is an "inspired" novel. Jay's inspirations are very clear to the discernible mind of a sharp reader and yet, he writes with such passion that you are willing to suspend your disbelief, let go of this transgressions to sink into this bumpy wild ride - of a young girl discovering herself through bonds of undying friendship, dreamy love and steely determination. Eve aka Ana of old, is a great character to be inside of as she struggles to understand her past and her destiny. She is spirited, an unbroken colt of the free lands and is willing to spit in the face of death if it serves her friends or family. Eve goes through several cycles of betrayal and this has sadly scarred her heart and her beliefs about this world, where truth never stays the same. It's a major part of her character arc evolution and I am not sure, if I still like all the changes she's gone through, frankly.
Ably supporting her in all her mad ventures is this small girl Lemon Fresh with a big heart and a bigger personality. Full of brim and vigor, colorful and sassy to the core, Lemon actually was my favorite character in the lot. I couldn't pinpoint her age but she brings all the cheek and sass of a young girl on the brink of her new adulthood as is reflective of her thinking and 'annoying' slang laden language. But her relentless bravery in the face of unimaginable dangers, will win hearts among the readers. The next big character of course, is the namesake of the novel - the not-boy or lifelike Ezekiel. He's a mirror to the past life horrors of Eve but is he also the key to a future, where Eve can redeem herself through his unrelenting love and devotion? I wish, they had a POV from his angle. For most parts, he comes across as the noble white knight which kind of made him a bit boring. But he's a sleek killing machine and his action sequences were highly enjoyable.
The antagonists are many - and their motivations for being evil, I thought, was very well done indeed. With compelling backstories that have turned them down the path of this 'evil redemption' and with that sick wicked twist in the plot now, Deviate is going to be interesting book to get to. The plot is very fast moving but now that I dissect the same - there wasn't a lot to hang onto. Hints about Eve's past are laid on pretty thick right from the beginning and so wasn't much of a surprise package. There are gun fights galore - including a Mad Max Fury Road wild chase sequence through a glass-storm radiation filled desert. Yeah, you read that right. This world is crazy and Jay Kristoff's vivid imagination is at work in full blast here as well. The world subject to a robotic carnage, is brought to life on the pages really well. Some of the imagery is fascinating and adds to the grim sense of despair that hangs to this world. Destruction is the order of the day. The robots are intelligent and there is a thinly veiled attempt at "questioning" the basis of what makes us human? The androids are made in the image of human beings but of course, are better in every possible way. The question that begs to be answered then, is Nurture greater than Nature? Because Jay's androids have egos bigger than the craters of the moon. Emotional imbalances galore. Surely that isn't 'engineered'? The names in this book are all Biblical (including a bounty hunter who calls himself Preacher and reads a Bible before blowing off holes in the hearts of his enemies!) and there are references to the fallen paradise that humanity have been subject to. So clearly Jay was gunning for something bigger here that will make us pause - even as today AI is taking over jobs all across the world. Sigh - that is a bigger canvas and I don't want to dip my brush in there, just yet.
Overall, I still like Mia Corvere and the running series of Nevernight (Oh by the way - DarkDawn is coming in Sept!!) much better than Eve and Lemon's together forever war against corrupt androids and AI systems. But I will be looking to their further adventures in the next book, DEV1AT3 - releasing in Oct. A great feat of imagination. A fun, fascinating adrenaline ride introducing us to some lovable bunch of heroic characters but somehow, I felt a bit let down in that shallow treatment of a lot of interesting questions that spiral off from this series premise.
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