Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Book Review: The Final Six

This isn't my usual reading material but it had an interesting premise, one that feels relevant to the current changes in climate, so I decided to give it a shot.

I'm so glad I did.

The Final Six - Alexandra Monir

Set in the near future, this action-packed YA novel—already optioned by Sony—will take readers out of their world and on a quest to become one of six teens sent on a mission to Jupiter’s moon.

When Leo, an Italian championship swimmer, and Naomi, a science genius from California, are two of the twenty-four teens drafted into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever altered. After erratic climate change has made Earth a dangerous place to live, the fate of the population rests on the shoulders of the final six who will be scouting a new planet. Intense training, global scrutiny, and cutthroat opponents are only a few of the hurdles the contestants must endure in this competition.

For Leo, the prospect of traveling to Europa—Jupiter’s moon—to help resettle humankind is just the sense of purpose he’s been yearning for since losing his entire family in the flooding of Rome. Naomi, after learning of a similar space mission that mysteriously failed, suspects the ISTC isn’t being up front with them about what’s at risk.

As the race to the final six advances, the tests get more challenging—even deadly. With pressure mounting, Naomi finds an unexpected friend in Leo, and the two grow closer with each mind-boggling experience they encounter. But it’s only when the finalists become fewer and their destinies grow nearer that the two can fathom the full weight of everything at stake: the world, the stars, and their lives.

It's not very often that I read a book and think, "this would make a great movie" but this one hits that mark. It's very much like The Hunger Games, teenagers from around the world who possess certain markers (ability, education, physical traits, etc) are selected to be one of the 24 who compete to become the Final Six- those six are charged with colonizing Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. While most of the candidates relish the idea of starting over and leaving a climate torn Earth behind, Naomi is not one of them. She hasn't experienced the loss and devastation the others have and she would be leaving behind her family, but more specifically, her brother Sam behind.

Add to the fact that the entire mission feels doomed to begin with and Naomi knows what the dangers and unknowns are. She isn't buying into the conveniently fluffy information the leaders are feeding the contestants so she decides she's going to use her smarts, and hacking program, to infiltrate one of the leading AI robots to get the information she desperately seeks about Europa, the RRB injections they've been getting, and more. Nothing goes as planned, especially the relationship between her and Leo, the candidate from Italy.

Just as we start to get some answers and real drama, the Final Six are chosen and it's devastation!! It leaves you on a major cliff hanger, and nothing is as it seems because the one person who wants to go and doesn't get chosen, gets pulled aside for their own mission that rivals that of the Final Six.

This was SO MUCH like The Hunger Games, and I liked it! I normally don't care for a sci-fi dystopian, but this one kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I knew maybe three quarters of the way in that I was going to be stuck on a cliff hanger and now I can't wait for book two. I so hope I get the opportunity to review that one because now I'm invested in this story, I have to follow it to the end. It would make for an incredible movie as well, we have the space drama, Europa's unknown, finalists you love for their tragic back story and the finalist you don't like at all, then you have Naomi and Leo. I didn't much like Naomi, she comes off as incredibly self absorbed, she isn't able to look beyond her little bubble in the world and see that the majority of people are experiencing tragic losses as a result of climate change. She's just worried about her brother who, let's face it, is probably going to die anyways. Maybe I'm callous but it seems like a wasted effort to save him in the face of current events in the world.

Anyways, I'm giving this a solid 4.5 stars. I'm only knocking it down because Naomi is so self absorbed it made it hard to really like her at all. I'm hoping now that she's had her epiphany at the end of this book that she gets her head in the game for book two.

   

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