Review: Warcross

Warcross by Marie Lu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

PINECONE GENERAL'S WARNING: This book is not to be read, listened to, or otherwise consumed if you have a heart condition, are pregnant, or have recently downed a cup of espresso con panna with two sugars. Literary cardiac arrest may ensue.

No, seriously, this book is just that Agents of SHIELD-grade intense. Especially given its author, Marie Lu, is one of the few whom I've consistently given five stars for each and every single book I've ever read of hers. Even the much-vaunted J.K. Rowling and Veronica Roth, my two biggest idols, don't share that honor with her. And on this, Lu's seventh novel overall, she outdoes herself magnificently. Here, we get her strongest heroine in the tatted, rainbow-haired Emika Chen - and more than ever, I'm fancasting Chloe Bennet for a Lu lead. And thank God Emika gets to narrate the entire book, unlike, say, June (necessary though the dual POVs were for Legend) or Adelina. The entire story hinges on us being in Emika's head all the time, because it builds up to an ending that completely turns the whole damn thing upside down and needs to be seen coming as little as possible, without any hint of an outside POV, for maximum effect.

World-building has always been one of Lu's best strengths, and this is no exception, particularly now that she's gone back to her video-game-industry roots to create a world that remains colorful and immersive even on black and white paper and text. Think Ready Player One, but a little further into the future and reliant on pop culture references beyond the 80s (Harry Potter is mentioned very frequently, to my delight, of course.) The colorful-ness even extends to the cover, controversial though it's been - I still love it because of the rainbow colors everywhere shining against a white background, but the title is laid out in such a way that it's very difficult to read. Something I really couldn't help but notice in practice today as I hand-sold this book all day long at the Stanford bookstore - many, many, many customers legit thought "Player, Hunter, Hacker, Pawn" was the real title because they couldn't read Warcross - but hey, again, I love the colors, and the sorta Rubik's Cube-like design that just begs to be animated into an official logo for an official film trailer.

But putting the cover jumble aside, hand-selling this book (after I spent my first couple of hours on shift sneakily reading the book while carrying it around on the floor, espresso-powered as I was in violation of my own Pinecone General's Warning!) proved shockingly easy. Hand-selling YA is a big challenge for me because even though it's my area of expertise, there aren't nearly as many customers in the Stanford bookstore who are into it. But this book, with its combination of virtual reality, a hyper-diverse cast, blazing fast action, bounty hunting, Dark Web deadliness, and hints to the dangers of an AI Singularity not unlike Person of Interest, has appealed to a great many customers, even those who aren't normally into YA or sci-fi books. Today alone, I sold two copies of this book and enticed several more customers to consider it. I literally even pitched it to one guy in the elevator, if you can believe that. And having freshly read and absorbed the whole damn thing in two hours, I could certify just how good Warcross truly was.

With apologies to Jason Reynolds and Miles Morales, the top slot in the potential rankings for this year's Pinecone Awards has, once again, gone to a Marie Lu book, the start of what promises to be her most incredible series yet.

Oh, and one more thing: yes, this book is part of the Legend 'verse, as proven with the VR tech behind the titular game (a later version of which appears in the Antarctica scenes in Champion if I remember correctly), and also with the character of Asher "Ash" Wing, an ancestor of Day's, right down to a strong family resemblance. In which case, I have a few ideas where this series could go next in Darkcross (that's my guess for the title for Book 2, anyway), but given how much the ending of this book alone subverted and double-subverted my expectations (and gut-punched my poor feels besides), I'm probably very, completely, terribly wrong.

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