Today I am participating in the blog tour thanks to Shane over at Itching for Books! I am happy to be a stop on this tour because it was a pretty awesome read!
Doomed by Tracey Deebs
Pandora #1
480 pages- Fiction,
Young Adult, Apocalyptic
January 8, 2013-
Walker Childrens
http://www.tracydeebs.com/
Facebook- Yes
Twitter-@TracyWolff
Rating: PG-13 due to
violence
Goodreads Summary: Beat the game. Save the world. Pandora’s just your average teen, glued to her cell phone and laptop, surfing Facebook and e-mailing with her friends, until the day her long-lost father sends her a link to a mysterious site featuring twelve photos of her as a child. Unable to contain her curiosity, Pandora enters the site, where she is prompted to play her favorite virtual-reality game, Zero Day. This unleashes a global computer virus that plunges the whole world into panic: suddenly, there is no Internet. No cell phones. No utilities, traffic lights, hospitals, law enforcement. Pandora teams up with handsome stepbrothers Eli and Theo to enter the virtual world of Zero Day. Simultaneously, she continues to follow the photographs from her childhood in an attempt to beat the game and track down her father, her one key to saving the world as we know it. Part The Matrix, part retelling of the Pandora myth, Doomed has something for gaming fans, dystopian fans, and romance fans alike.
My Thoughts:
Wow! That is all that I can say
right now. I am at a loss for words. I can’t say that I expected much from this
story. If I’m to be honest and since this is my review I am. The synopsis sounds interesting- the end of
the world and a video game. It had me interested enough to participate in the
blog tour. But I have to say that I didn’t expect it to leave me speechless.
Maybe it’s because the Mayan prophecies said the world was supposed to end a
week ago. I watched all those shows that talked about it and those shows that
talked about people planning what they would do if life as we knew it cease to
be. Maybe it’s because Doomed was
just a bit too realistic. I mean what would the world become if everything that
we have come to depend on –communications, gas and electricity, etc…- shut
down? Oh, there is so much I could say about that topic alone, so I will move
on to the book.
I enjoyed
this adventure a lot. Yes, there were moments when I wanted to smack Pandora. I
thought she was too whiny and a bit of a crybaby. But really, if I knew my
father was responsible for destroying the world and was using me as a pawn in his evil
scheme, I am not sure if I would do any better.
I didn’t like her best friend Jules, though. Jules doesn't get much page time before
everything hits the fan. One moment she’s all mouth, her dad is connected to
Homeland Security. The next she’s all quiet so she doesn’t get into trouble. I
need you all in if you’re going to try to make it past the bluffing stage with
the governmental alphabet soup! In the end, I was glad that Jules gets left
behind.
On their
scavenger hunt to save the world, you really start to get to know Pandora, Theo
and Eli. You know that these are not
your average tens. All three have family issues. But, I think Pandora has it
worse. Her mom is off –again- working out of town. Her father, who is not in
the picture, is not inspiring for good guy of the year. Even at the end of the
book you don’t feel as if you know everything. You know enough to know that
even before Pandora’s Box they all had a lot going on. These characters are
complex creatures, as humans are, and they don’t suddenly open up and let the
world in just because the world is ending. That’s probably what I like most,
despite the fantastic idea – a game that can save the world from a worm
designed to destroy it- there’s a lot of realism in the book. Okay, so maybe I’m
hoping that if the world is threatened that there’s more than three random
teenagers that can save it. For what it is though – a story- it rings with
honesty. The pursuit of the FBI and
Homeland Security and how they’re discovered and found again and again. How
they escape/dodge custody again and again and again. How they feel about what it is that they have
to do to keep moving. It’s not a walk in the park and they never make it sound
like it is.
For
those curious, there is romance. Two boys and one girl, there is a triangle. I
think that this one was done successfully. It didn’t just happen because they
were stuck on the run together. There was attraction before, and I dreaded
thinking that the attraction would blossom in the middle of a life and death
scenes. You know the cheesy (and totally unbelievable) ones where the
characters realize they are madly in love with each other just because they
came close to dying. No, Pandora
realizes how ridiculous it would be to act on anything while they were running
for their lives (smart girl!). In the end, when they have breathing room, they
finally act on it. Will I tell you who? No, there was some back and forth, and
I don’t know if she would have thought this from the beginning. Regardless, I
think it works. I am happy to learn that
this is the first in a new series.
A copy of this galley was given to me, free, in exchange for my honest
review.
Great review!
ReplyDeleteThanks! and thanks for stopping by!
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