Jay Kristoff

LIFEL1K3

Danny Werhane

4.5* Romance was a little over too over done for me but besides that it was good

Jeff James

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from NetGalley.

LIFEL1K3 is the rare book that I mostly enjoyed until the end soured me on the whole thing. It’s a mash-up of a lot of genres and tropes, which gives it a certain amount of madcap charm, but it squanders that good will with some draggy pacing, an overload of teenage angst, and a final twist that feels like a gotcha moment designed only for shock value. It’s also overstuffed with plot and world-building, so it’s almost impossible to summarize succinctly.

When you live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, you have to make ends meet in whatever way possible. Eve builds and pilots homegrown battle-bots from spare parts and pits them against challengers in gladiator battles with the help of her trusty little robot, Cricket, and her best friend, Lemon Fresh. She has a cybernetic eye and a “memdrive” installed in her brain to help her remember her past life, cut short when she was shot and left for dead.

When the book opens, she’s about to fight a malfunctioning corporate bot to get medicine for her ailing grandfather, Silas. The battle goes south, but she’s saved at the last minute when she unleashes some kind of telekinetic power that fries the malfunctioning bot.

Only problem is, gladiator battles are broadcast throughout the local area, and her performance brings her to the attention of some unsavory types, including a religious sect who kill “deviates” on sight and a corporate bounty hunter who wants to capture her for nefarious purposes.

Lucky for her, she’s saved by a beautiful “lifelike” robot named Ezekiel, designed to resemble a handsome young man with super-strength, who she salvaged when his ship crashed nearby. When they try to make their getaway, another lifelike named Faith captures her grandfather, so Eve and her friends have to save him while also running from the bounty hunter hot on their tails. Complicating things is the fact that Ezekiel and Faith both seem to recognize her and call her by another name, Ana.

Now, it’s kind of hard to explain my criticisms of the book without spoilers, so I’m going to warn you now that the rest of this review will be full of them. (view spoiler)[When Faith damages Eve’s memdrive in a fight, Eve starts having flashes of another life different from the hardscrabble one she thinks she knows. It turns out that Eve isn’t who she thinks she is, which becomes a running theme.

Eve begins remembering her life as Ana, who lived in a corporate tower with her father, the inventor of the lifelikes. She knows the lifelikes and has a shared, tragic history with them! Also, her grandfather isn’t her grandfather. Instead, he’s an engineer who gave her fake memories so that she could have a fresh start.

Ezekiel was the boy of her dreams, Faith was her best friend, and the lifelikes (except possibly Ezekiel) betrayed her family and killed them in a revolution. The angst and the drama build as Eve tries to reconcile her identities and histories, deal with her buried feelings for Ezekiel, and fumes about people lying to her.

You might think that everything I’ve summarized up above is more than enough for one book, and you’d be right. However, Kristoff still has a few twists left up his sleeve. The first few twists just stir up more drama and angst, but the final twist is what soured me on the book.

It turns out that Eve isn’t even the real Ana – she’s secretly a lifelike designed to think she was Ana. After she was shot, Silas installed the memdrive to give her a fresh start as someone new. This revelation puts her over the edge, and she pushes her friends away and slides into apparent villainy in the final sentence of the book.

By that point, I’d already lost a little bit of patience with the number of plot twists and the angsty in-fighting characters, but I wouldn’t have minded the final twist so much if Eve’s decision was less black-and-white. If she’d gone out into the world to find herself with mysterious motivations, I’d at least want to find out more about who she decides to become. Instead, she seeks out another lifelike with clearly villainous motivations and tells him that they have a lot of work to do.

It felt like Kristoff was trying to force Eve’s decision to BE EVIL, and it made me not care about her journey. LIFEL1K3 was a bit of an exhausting read thanks to its everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink storytelling, but that final twist just felt like it sold out the main character for a cheap shock. (hide spoiler)]

Originally published at Full of Words.

Dee B. 

At 60% in I was convinced that this was going to be 3 stars at best. I wasn't convinced of the story or the need to continue on with this series. But then THE plot twist happened at about 75 so I added a half star in my mental tally. Then the ending happened and asknfldfldjfldjk. I see who is responsible for all those cliffhangers in the Illuminae series now. 


Here. For. It.

All 4 stars have been earned sir.

Chiara Vitale Zelaia

HOLY SHIT. 

I don’t even know how to properly review this book. I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s try to start from the beginning. I am terrified of robots. There, I said it. There’s one too many movies of robots going berserk and murdering everyone for me to be okay with this raging obsession of making robots as similar to man as possible, and smarter. It’s one of the main reasons why sci-fi is not my comfort zone when it comes to books.
BUT, I’ve read the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, and I loved the sci-fi setting and I loved Iko (who is an android, for those who don’t know the series).
BUT, this is Jay Kristoff, and if I’m going to overcome my dread of robots for anyone in this world, it’s for Jay Kristoff.
So I picked up the book, and was faced precisely with those robots going berserk that terrify me, but also with an extremely clever retelling of the story of the Romanov dynasty and of Pinocchio!

The first thing that was immediately clear to me was that Jay Kristoff might very well be becoming my all time favorite author. Don’t get me wrong, he’s already on the list of my favorites, but he might be becoming THE ONE. There’s a quality to this man’s writing that just blows me away. It’s like poetry and music and prose all into one, and the result is that I look like a drug addict as I read and I turn to my sister with maniacal grins and say “I must write like this too”. So writing style: A+

The second thing that became clear to me is that we, the people of 2018, have a moral responsibility. The story is set in Yousay, which is a futuristic version of USA. Specifically, we’re in California—or better, what is left of it after a nuclear explosion. Imagine an American suburb with more trash, more robots, even more fanatics and even more people dying of cancer. It’s not so hard to imagine, is it? Well that’s exactly what the real world is going to look like if we don’t do something about it today.
But our moral responsibility does not end there, my friends. The thing I had most trouble with in this book was the slang of these characters, especially the young ones. Parents and future parents, PLEASE, bodily keep your children from speaking the way these kids do!

Getting through the slang was hard, but once I got used to it in the first few chapters, the story absolutely picked up. There’s never a dull moment, folks.  Not one.  The action picks up in the very first chapters, and it immediately sets us on a quest with characters that are witty, sarcastic, brave and  relatable . You guessed it, I even fell in love with the robots. I loved them all! I wasn’t particularly invested in the romance (in fact, I went ahead and decided to ship something that is not canon YET. So I need the second book immediately), but that was not a problem at all. This book is rich with friendship, with fight sequences, with moments of extreme hilarity and moments of extreme heartbreak, as only Jay Kristoff can write them.

And it’s rich with plot twists.

You guys. There’s a few of them in this book, and let me tell you one thing: the most perceptive of you  might  catch up on one of them, but I will never believe that anyone could possibly have predicted the ending of this book. I still can’t wrap my freaking mind around it!

Jay Kristoff, what have you been telling me?

Maria Elena Vitale Zelaia

I am sitting here, struggling to find the words to express in coherent sentences … why I loved this book so freaking much! Aaaah! Jay Kristoff has done it again, my gentlefriends. While Darkdawn may have been postponed to next year, he gave us one exciting story to read to quench our thirst. 

The story immediately starts off with an action sequence that gives us a measure of the protagonist, Eve, and two of the secondary characters, her friend, Lemon Fresh, and her robot, the logika Cricket. Very much like Nevernight and Godsgrave, where we see Mia in action, here we experience a robot gladiator match, which is Eve’s environment, the thing she is good at alongside building and fixing the robots she uses to fight in the first place. From there on, there is hardly a dull moment! 

I found the setting of this book to be freakishly interesting. I say freakishly because I am normally terrified of robots and the idea that one day they’ll murder us all and take over the world. Iko from The Lunar Chronicles was a nice exception to my fear of robots, and I am happy to say this book gave me another one of those rare jewels: Ezekiel. (Yeah, okay, Cricket too.) I fell in love with a robot! Who could have thought? Only Jay Kristoff, guys. Only he could do the unthinkable and deliver me a lifelike boyfriend. Of course that does not mean that there is a shortage of freaky robots off to terrorize little ole’ me, quite the opposite, and beware of humans as well!

But where did I geek out the most? The flashbacks! Part Two is especially filled with them, leading up to an awesome reveal that had me grinning in my pillow in the middle of the night. But the reveals did not stop there, otherwise my mind couldn’t have been properly blown onto the walls and Jay Kristoff doesn’t like that. There are several, actually: one had me crying, one had my eyes bulging out and the other one had me gasping for ten minutes straight. When you read the book, you pick and choose which caused what. 

My favorite characters of the story where Ezekiel (I love him, okay?) and Lemon, this sassy, lovable human being, Eve’s “bestest” and Spirit AnimalTM. Both of these characters would walk on water, on hot coals—you name it—for the people they love and they also happen to share this very fun banter that was cause of most of my giggles while reading this book. Lemon’s so fun to read and Zeke, with his dimpled smile and his “spankable tail section”, is so charming! [insert heart eyes here]

Perhaps the only thing I had a little trouble with at first was the slang used by most of the characters. It took a bit for me to get used to it, but once I did, it was totally fine. Jay Kristoff could write the grocery list and he’d surely find a way for me to hold it up in the air screaming “REVOLUTIONARY!” while waving it in the air. I’m simply in love with his writing style. 

Oh, and the cliffhanger…

I am deceased. 

Let me tell you this, I was so blown away by this sci-fi book that my sister and I finally decided to give Illuminae a shot! We’re starting it tonight and I couldn’t be more excited! (Even though I’ve been telling my friends on Instagram that I would be starting Red Rising. Sorry guys! The heart wants what it wants and I want Kristoff.)

Savannah Winchell

LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff
4.25 ⭐️
- lol a lot of what I was iffy about was flipped in the best way possible 
- twistssssss
- cool world
- heavy handed at times
- I can’t say what I want to say without spoilers
- pumped for where this is going

Sonja H

Wir befinden uns im postapokalyptischen Amerika, in dem es neben der menschlichen Rasse auch Androiden und andere technische Wesen gibt, die jedoch entweder als Sklaven gehalten werden oder sich außerhalb des Gesetzes bewegen.

Wir verfolgen die Geschichte von Eve, die auf einen „Lifelike“ trifft – einem Androiden mit hoch entwickelter KI und Emotionen – und deren Schicksale miteinander verbunden zu sein scheinen.

Es ist eine Geschichte voller Action, die mich schon allein wegen des Themas „Menschen und KI“ sehr interessiert hat.
Ähnlich wie bereits bei der Scythe-Reihe oder den „Wayfarers“ treffen wir auch hier auf eine künstliche Intelligenz, die Gefühle verspürt, mit denen sie umzugehen lernen muss.
Und wieder stellt sich die Frage „Wird eine KI jemals Emotionen entwickeln?“ Kann eine KI uns so ähnlich werden, dass die Unterschiede lediglich im „Material“ liegen und welche Konsequenzen wird das haben?
Ich finde es sehr spannend, wie verschiedene AutorInnen dieses Thema behandeln und dass viele darin übereinstimmen, dass es denkbar wäre und unberechenbare Folgen hätte.

Jay Kristoff hat seine Ideen zu dieser Problematik ausgesprochen gekonnt in einer spannenden Erzählung untergebracht, die sowohl für Jugendliche als auch für Erwachsene geeignet ist. Ja, es gibt eine kleine Romanze, aber dennoch sind es andere Aspekte, die im Vordergrund stehen.

Ich würde ja gern ein wenig über das Ende sprechen, weil es mich unglaublich begeistert hat, doch es würde zu sehr spoilern, was ich hier ausnahmsweise komplett vermeiden möchte.
Das ist ein Buch, dass man selbst gelesen haben muss!

Leider gibt es noch keine Übersetzung, aber Band 2 ist bereits für Ende Mai auf Englisch angekündigt. ich bin ausgesprochen gespannt, wie es weitergehen wird.

Absolute Leseempfehlung.

First: Am I the only one that thinks this is loosely based on Anastasia? apparently no, it's everywhere. I just don't read anything about books I'm reading.

Now that that's out of the way I'm just going to tell you that honestly, I have no idea what made me pick up this book because of two reasons:
1. I am not a huge fan of sci-fi - it's not that I do not like the genre, it just takes me a long time to get invested in the story, so I usually avoid it if I am not 100 % sure I will absolutely adore the book.
2. Me and Jay Kristoff's writing apparently do not get along. That's not me saying that I think the writing is bad it's just that his writing style does not click with me and I can not follow the plot with 100% of my brain, I just get distracted. But, unlike Nevernight, I managed to finish this one and I did enjoy his writing a lot more. I feel that he did not use as many descriptions here as he did in Nevernight and the flashbacks he adds did not pull me out of the story as they did in the other book.

Now that I've rambled enough I've got to say that I really did enjoy this one. The plot is interesting and the characters are okay. I'm not obsessed with them but they aren't annoying me. I mean, I fell into this reading slump and I hate all the characters in all the books so it's a plus that I say they're okay and this book might have gotten me out of the slump - we'll see.
The world confused me a bit, but at least we are given the definition of the robot types at the beginning of the book so it's easy to just go back and check because I have such a short attention span and I kept forgetting what the different types of robots were.
I did find it predictable. I guessed the two-three major plot twists when I was about 35% in and that sort of lowered my enjoyment of the story. But I understand why people love this one. Especially if you already were a Jay Kristoff fan starting this book.

I absolutely think that this would make a great TV show I would definitely watch that!

In conclusion, I think I'm giving this one 3.5 stars. And I'm not really sure if I'll continue with the series, but I will definitely pick Kristoff's upcoming book at least to see if I still have a love-hate relationship with his style.

I think that's all I wanted to say.

Allie Herrington

Cyperpunk Pinocchio?

Okay so this book is not what I expected. Seriously it's not. As usual I'll look at this book both as a librarian and as a reader. Hopefully once I'm done you'll understand my confusion.

Librarian: I knew going into this book that we would be buying it for my library, no matter what. My students love Kristoff's other books and I know that they'll devour this one. And for people who are fans of his works, this book is pretty much perfect. It's written in a mix of present day and flashbacks and is full of exciting twists and turns. It's one that they'll read eagerly, and then complain about having to wait to find out what come next.

Reader: As mentioned, my students (and fellow staff members) love Kristoff's books. Like a lot. I however have never been a huge fan. This book doesn't change that. It was an interesting diversion, but there was nothing spectacular about it. Kristoff is a fantastic world builder, but the plot was only okay. Not amazing. Really, most of the unexpected twists came from how different I found this book to be from the description.

Jasmine Neville

3.5 
This book was at times a little dragging but I had fun predicting what would happen and I ended up enjoying this book. Definitely would have been 4 stars if not for some of the slower parts.

Samantha Chavez 

I was NOT expecting that ending. 
I loved it. I loved this retelling of Anastasia that is completely different from anything I’ve ever read before.
The action and plot are fantastic and will make you wondering what happens next. The plot twist was one I did not see coming, and it made it all the more enjoyable.
If you haven’t picked this book up yet, what are you waiting for?

LIFEL1K3

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