Review: Wildcard

Wildcard 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 Triple Mocha Frappuccino. Literary cardiac arrest may ensue.

Yes, I had to bring back my earlier warning for Warcross, but now with the extra Frappuccino caveat because this time, it took a hell of a lot more caffeine to blaze through this book. Last year, I drank an espresso con panna e due zuccheri and was able to read all of Warcross in two hours. Today, after I got the ARC of Wildcard at work, I immediately got that Triple Mocha to power myself to read the book with all the Frappuccino Fury. And it helped me set a new speed record - this book, I read in one hour. And it was every bit as action-packed and surprising as its predecessor.

Twice now, Marie Lu's won Pinecone Awards on my end-of-the-year blog posts - #1 for The Rose Society and #2 for Warcross (and there would've been more, but then my blog only started in 2015, so...) For sure, Wildcard earns itself a Pinecone too, of that I'm sure. Which place it'll get in the Top 5, I still can't say for sure. But what I can tell you is that it's the only other new book I've read this year that meets the out-of-this-world standard set a few months ago by Children of Blood and Bone.

I won't go too deep into the plot because there are significant Warcross spoilers just from the very start. I will tell you, though, that as much as Warcross changed the game like never before with its ending, it's nowhere near that simple. The plot of this book could've progressed on a total paint-by-numbers path, but Marie Lu's too smart for that. The twists simply never stop coming, the action never stops, and the romance, so Reylo-esque to my Reylo-loving eye, is rich and complex just like the coffee that's traditionally powered my speed-reads for these books. And of course, Lu continues to bless us with one of the most inclusive casts of characters you'll ever see. All the racial diversity from Warcross is still there, and of course considerable queer rep - enby readers take note, one side character who gets their moment in the spotlight uses they/them pronouns, which is always great to see since that's still so rare that I know of. *gently nudges this up to Mason Deaver if they haven't read this yet* Best of all, while I totally expected this book to end on somewhat of a downer note - it does take place pre-Legend, after all - the ending of this book throws out strongly hopeful themes that are absolutely refreshing in this day and age, especially when there are so many people who would stamp on said hope just to have something to keep on fighting against.

And on a smaller but more personally cool note, the only thing that made me pause in my read was the mention of a Phoenix Rider named Jackie Nguyen, for which I had to send my work buddy of the same name a quick Snapchat.

In the months since Warcross dropped last year - hell, I think I even started referencing Warcross in my manuscripts before reading the book. I wrote my characters going to the movies with the intention of watching a long-awaited Warcross adaptation - but of course, my own fictional tech-giant villains ruin the ride. Not the first time I've shouted out a Marie Lu book in my own work - The Young Elites hit it big when I first started writing. Incidentally, my own two leads would make a great and convincing Adelina/Enzo couples cosplay. Those same two, though...they actually get an opening scene in their own second book that now, it turns out, eerily parallels that of Wildcard on a couple of levels.

(Well, my books might not get published for a good long time. I still have time to make any necessary nips and tucks to mine.)

When Wildcard comes out, if I'm still working my bookstore job by then, I'll be pushing it right alongside Warcross like I've been for the last nine months. I think it might've been my anticipation for reading this book after work that got me to sell no less than TWO Warcrosses in four hours today!

To Warcross and Wildcard, the one exception to my usual wish that duologies either be standalone or trilogies because it's Marie Lu and she's got everything pitch-perfect and spot on point in both books, I now say ave atque vale.

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