what in the fresh hell morning after: ok i should probably elaborate (view spoiler)[ - i sincerely do not understand the want for a love triangle. i really do not! like this one wasn't straightup one, but you KNEW. it wasn't even a new trope either - it was my DETESTED best friend - girl - popular kid one. HATRED. no USE. - on that note tack was an ass. I know the author was trying to be like oh this kid is in love with Min and she doesn't realize etc etc but GOD he was awful and for what. - Noah was also super . Why - actually all the characters were. I don't even know they were just. Flat. You know?? - I am super let down by the twist anyway - so confused by the betas. were they already just code in a computer from the very beginning? why WERE they killed every two years? for what purpose? why why why what is up with september 17th??? - aaaaa the premise was truly cool. the actual story? meh.. it was kind of neat what the adults did but wtf. just. lmao - also OH MY GODDDDDDD the kiss after Tack died to Ethan like GOD i saw it coming I was hoping so badly it wouldn't happen and it did. STOP USING THAT TROPE STOP at least noah wasn't an ass about it (hide spoiler)]

anyone who thinks this is a bad book is wrong. i was entertained for about 80% of this novel. as i was reading the chapters, it felt like i was reading pretty quickly but the book was still fairly slow. i don’t remember how many chapters there were but i think there was 50? but it does have 2 point of views. speaking of pov’s, noah’s chapters were pretty boring when he wasn’t with min and tack because—no offense—he literally has no life and all he ever did was talk about his problems. we literally heard about it in every chapter noah, we no longer care! tack carried this book, by the way.

This book turned out to be not what I was expecting to read. The story develops in a fine line between sci-fi and fantasy. At any moment, I could see the story tip to one side or the other due to all the mystery surrounding... everything. The last few chapters are the only ones that set a stone into the sci-fi genre, until then, it's just speculative. I didn't mind being clueless for so long. In a way is what grabs you. You commit to the book and then you want to see it all the way through. Find out what is project Nemesis? Why is Min being murdered and breathing again? And all these questions and many more that came up, kept me turning pages. Although it was slightly annoying seeing the characters curious and decisive to understand what is happening, but then get lost in other dramas and problems instead of looking for answers. I'm used to these kinds of stories having the teens going out to look for answers on their own and only stopping when they find them, but instead, with Min and Noah, they went out to find even more questions and stopped. And this made the story drag a little bit more. If I wasn't curious to understand what and why is happening, I probably wouldn't enjoy it. The story develops slowly and dedicates a lot of time to the characters. There were a few things (if not everything) that surprised me, but then again that was through to the end of the book when some questions were finally being answered. The characters are... complicated. I like Min, she has her heart in the right place. But besides her, there isn't any other character. Also, this lack of connection between the reader and the characters only piles up on the slow development. I didn't care that much for their feeling or their thoughts (that sometimes were the same over and over again). I wanted them to do something, to go out, to look for answers. And at times, it seemed very obvious that's what they should be doing, but instead they would get into some drama or trouble or even do nothing. I was expecting something quicker, something faster, more straight to the point, but instead is a bunch of characters I don't care about, have some terrifying behaviour for teenagers, are too aggressive, and aren't that much adventurous. Although I'm continuing with the series to see where it leads to, and maybe when I have all the answers my opinion might change.

It was good, but not quite what I was expecting or hoping for. The explanation for the conspiracy fell a bit flat, but it was certainly interesting.

I truly feel like barely anything happened in this book, which is ... not good. It was an interesting premise but Min and Noah both annoyed me in equal measures and a lot about how the whole mystery of the Nemesis Project planned out made no sense to me.

This is the last review I need to write to get back on track (finally!) It's only going to be brief I'm afraid, though! I love Kathy Reichs, especially her Virals series, and naturally thought I would enjoy this, too. And I did, to a degree - just not as much as I had expected to. The book alternates between two narrators, Noah and Min. They don't seem to have that much in common, except that every other year, on their birthday, they are both murdered. They then wake up in different places the next morning, alive and well. I will not go into too much depth on this, but it's probably quite obvious that this odd occurrence freaks both kids out. And of course, they want to know what the heck is going on, and why it's happening to them. Their paths eventually cross, and they discover that they are both 'Betas' in a secret project. It was an intriguing storyline, and I am really interested to know more. But it was also a bit... I don't know, my questions weren't all answered. In fact, not many of them were at all. I also didn't really connect with the characters as much as I did with Virals, so that was a shame. Overall, I'm giving it 3.5 stars. Maybe one day I'll continue reading the series, but it's not really a priority.

I feel like the author spent a good chunk of the book establishing characters and then wasn’t consistent with them. Nothing significant happened until the very end and somehow there was not enough build up for it but also way too much. If I hadn’t already bought the second book I wouldn’t have wanted to carry on with this series.

** spoiler alert ** Nemesis is one of my favorite books plot-wise, but the character and writing dynamics really pissed me off sometimes. the ending kind of ruined it for me, and i don’t think i’ll read the next novel because of it. 1) the story. fucking AMAZING. 5/5 stars on its own 2) the weird offhanded comments and backpedaling. the way noah interrupts the story to say something weird about a girl for a paragraph?? creepy and unnecessary, and i don’t think it’s meant to be. also, the way we’re told that tack’s bruises are from his dad and then min asks “what would your dad do if he saw that?” like there’s another reason we’re never given??? it genuinely confused me for a good 150 pages before i realized i wasn’t gonna get an answer. 3) fuck ethan. 4) what the FUCK happened to noah at the end? HOW did he just turn into a complete asshole and turn on min? and WHY didn’t he kill ethan sooner if he had the gun the whole time? i have SO many questions, and i’m just hoping the noah we saw at the end wasn’t really noah. 0/5 stars for noah going 100 to 0. literally the reason why i’m not reading the second book even though it’s right in front of me — i don’t wanna see more of evil scary noah :(

The premise of this book really gripped me. And I still enjoyed about 3/4 of the book. But the last part, I just wasn't a fan. I thought it was a standalone novel, so I was pretty surprised when I was hit with a cliff hanger. And that ending? I was mad. (view spoiler)[Sure, it was different, and I liked that, but there's a certain aspect I like in my romances. And that happens to involve one of them not killing the other. Kind of a mood killer. (hide spoiler)] Still, an interesting read, but I don't think I'll be picking up the sequel.

I don't know how I feel about this book. I found myself engaged in the book from the beginning. Reichs certainly knows how to hook his readers. I spend over a hundred pages trying to figure things out. After I accidentally read a spoiler in a brief review of the second book in the series, I dedicated my sleuthing skills to figuring out how Reiches, through his characters, made everything work. Ultimately though, the direction that Noah turned, turned me off to the entire book. I simply do not know how to feel about the choices he made. Some of those choices don't seem to fit yet they do. I want to know what happens in the other two books of the series, but not enough that I want to dedicate significant amounts of time to reading those two books. I have read a lot of distopian fiction and even dabbled in the CW's The 100, which this feels way too much like, and I do not know how many different stories like this can be told.