Wildcard

I only have 50 minutes left of laptop battery to write this review of Wildcard by Marie Lu. Why am I writing this with no charger and a limited amount of time? Because I'm stuck in the air for 2 more hours with no internet connection and nothing to do. Well, that's kind of false. I do have something to do and that's to read Choderlos de Laclos's novel “Dangerous Liais

ons”. It's French, it's an epistolary novel, and it's an assigned reading book for my English Independent Studies class. However, it's kind of boring right now even though it was said to be a very scandalous book when it came out in the 17th or 18th century.
Back to Wildcard. I was reading this book last year but never came around to finishing it. School does that to a reader, unfortunately. Though I was interested in how Emika would resolve the big plot twist at the end of the first novel, I wasn't interested enough to get back to the novel after months in-between. I only got the time to finish it when I was at my sister's graduation. You know the drill: wait for all the graduates to file into their seats. Then wait for the speakers to finish talking, and there are always three speeches. Then, you get to the final part where all the students' names are butchered and chopped up by some unfortunate person who has no experience with Asian pronunciations. This whole procedure takes three hours (at the least), so I decided to make for the wasted time by finishing the last third of Wildcard.
Sorry, but spoilers below!
-
-
-
Okay, so I'm going to get this out of the way first. There is little to romance in the book, as much of it was set up and flushed out in the prequel. I actually have no complaints about this as there was a bigger plan and picture at play. We have Sasuke Uch-I'm sorry. Tanaka. He was revealed to be Zero at the end of Warcross and we are all shocked at the fact that Hideo's long-lost brother was not lost after all. He's changed though, different than the young boy in Hideo's memories. Time, of course, is part of this, but also due to Taylor's influence over him. I don't want to go too much into the details of the plot because this wouldn't really be a review otherwise.
One of the biggest things of this novel and its premise is the way hacking is introduced. Of course, many things in a sci-fi novel, hundreds of years from now kind of story has technology or things that are going to be hard to really describe in detail for the audience. It could be a draw-back or a plus depending on how you look at it, but much of the “hacking” is visualized in a physical, virtual space. Getting inside Zero's mind is determined by a game of Warcross – the main game of this world (similar to capture the flag but more epic). I see how Lu had to make things interesting and not have readers simply see sentences that state “Emika settles into her chair and flexes her fingers. She's hacking into the mainframe.” [super disclaimer: I have no idea what a mainframe is.] I believe that there were no other ways to make this work but I do wish there was less of a “lets fight virtually” because it's kind of ridiculous at that point. If you're going to hack, can't you hack the super soldiers away from you? It seems to me that there were more limitations than I thought in a virtual space. Of course, if this is the way the world works in the novel, then it will have to work like that.

This review is such a bumbling mess, and it is all due to the fact that I had less than six hours of sleep the night before. Bear with me.
One character that stood out of all of this (and let me just say, I did not care for any of the team members that Emika was in a team with. I can't even tell you – oh wait it's the Phoenix Riders. Okay. We got it.) was Jax. She's the adopted daughter of Taylor, the evil scientist. Her whole arc was really cliché, and I have to say, the entire backstory of Taylor's was very cliché was well. I would expect this kind of plot from a 70's scifi movie when Blade Runner was the epitome of what technology could do and be. I half-expected androids to pop out and make an appearance. Let me tell you, they kind of did when Zero had his own robotic metal suit that he controlled. I have to admit, Jax did a lot in this novel. She was pretty much the protagonist we all needed when Emika was stuck in her little puzzling situation with a serial killer boyfriend (Hawkeye anyone?) on the loose and an international crisis on her hands. But, the novel just glosses over her background, a few mentions here and there of her blossoming, innocent romance with Sasuke, and then her transformation into a cold, steel assassin.
I get that Lu was pressed for time as it was a duology, but damn. There was so much that could've been explored. Not even just with Jax's character, but like, the whole thing. People committing suicide over crimes that no one knew they committed. People confessing to murders or kidnappings, rapes, etc, etc, and everyone is bewildered at the phenomenon. I want to see how some people may have been rioting for the program to be reinstated, because it was a necessary evil. Even now we have people debating capital punishment, because it's the criminals who are put to death. Notorious ones too. And this program is making them do it themselves. Isn't this better for society?
I'm on Emika's side. I think it's very much inhumane to just put everyone's lives under the judgment of one person (Hideo) and his creation. But, this is just too interesting of a concept to just say “they got rid of the program.” I want the fall-out to be flushed more. We get Hideo charged with second-degree murder...and then he's released. I'm sure there are going to be people wanting his program for other scary purposes.
Anyway, what I want to be explored is easily enough for another series. Course, Emika's and Hideo's story are finished. With that said, I can't wait for more books to come out of Lu's head!

I also want to point out that though I was entertained, much of the beginning was very dragged on. It's a book you finish so you can read the end. Is it worth it? Up to you.