Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publish Date: March 12, 2013
Source: Publisher for honest review
Pages: 480
Series: Mila 2.0 #1
Rating: Near Miss
Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past -- that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people will never do.
Now she has no choice but to run--from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila's becoming is beyond anyone's imagination, including her own, and it just might ave her life.
I haven't heard anything bad about Mila
2.0, so I was a little
disappointed when I found myself trudging along through the first
half. However, it did pick up in the second half and I ended up
enjoying the book overall.
Let's get my
dislikes out of the way first.
Since Mila doesn't
know she's an android in the beginning the story is just following
her daily life which I found to be pretty dull. That's not to mention
that all her friends are kind of witchy and annoying.
And
then there's Hunter. I imagine he's going to be pretty important as
the story goes on, but his and Mila's relationship just felt super
weird to me. First off, he's only in about ¼ of the book and yet
Mila thinks about him all the time. And am I the only one who thinks
it's a little weird that Hunter invites himself over to Mila's house
late at night? I mean, I know he was intending to check on her, but
they hadn't even spoken all too much before the crash. I honestly
spent the whole book waiting for him to pop up and *surprise*
betray Mila or be working for the bad guy or something because it
felt like his character would make more sense then.
Okay, I know this sounds a little terrible, but I got really sick of
Mila's whining. Yes, I know she just discovered she's an android and
all that, but I can only handle so much. She does end up growing and
accepting herself, so I appreciate that. I don't necessarily wish she
accepted it faster, just that I didn't have to hear so much about it.
I will give you that it'd be disturbing to stab someone with a hair
dryer cord.
Okay, now onto the positive stuff.
I
spent most of the second half with my stomach in knots (in a good
way) wondering what was coming next. There was just enough action to
keep my heart rate up while keeping my heart in
the story with twists and emotional developments.
The second half is where we start to move away from “I just found
out I'm an android and nothing else matters” to “maybe this isn't
so bad, and it can help save the people I care about.” This felt
engaging and had me more invested in the story than the first half
did; there's a face to the bad guy now, but still plenty of mysteries
with more of them popping up right and left.
When the story begins Mila feels pretty blah to me. She's depressed,
doesn't have all too much personality, and doesn't really think about
anything other than her dead father and the new guy at school. As the
story progresses, especially after getting to the compound, she
starts to have more complicated emotions and turns out to be a pretty
caring person which helped me connect with her.
Holland's a pretty crappy guy. Which makes him a good villain. At
this point there's honestly nothing at all to like about him. He
doesn't have a sad backstory or any traits that humanize him in any
way. He makes it all that much easier to care about Mila and her
situation.
The Nutshell: Mila 2.0 wasn't a total hit for me since I was pretty bored during the first half, but the second half managed to pull me in enough to become invested in the story. The entire first half of the book is setup which gets a little old, however, when you get to the point where the setup turns into story it's hard not to get interested in all the action, mystery, and emotion. I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel.
...this book. I pretty much felt exactly the same as you did. I was so excited for it - after that summary, how could it be anything but awesome?? - but it fell flat for me.
ReplyDeleteHer obsession with Hunter drove me crazy. I kept waiting for him to come back into the picture and he never did. Why was Mila obsessed with him? THEY BARELY SPOKE. Then hung out what, once? Twice? Then she was on the run. I didn't get it.
I will say that the action scenes were really well done. Everything else though, was a bit of a letdown.