Warcross

Quit this shit about third of the way in.

Everyone nowadays is obsessed with the notion of a “strong female character”. I personally find it ridiculous, as a female character who is not necessarily a strong person can still be an interesting and strongly written one. Also, by now we all know it means one specific type of a female character and I don't like that type.
Emika is THAT type. She is 18, orphaned, super street smart. She has rainbow hair, tattoos, she is a master hacker and bounty hunter. Has no personality other than being super ‘cool', she also never really seems to actually do any of the work in connection with her hacking. She just looks at the code and magically knows what's wrong and what to do to fix it. Everything that goes wrong around her is the fault of someone else, because Emika herself is infallible and effortlessly so. Life just hates her, which should be a crime, as Emika is perfect. Casual lines dropped about a modelling agent discovering her as a child and being able to solve a whole programming introduction book as a teen without even reading it or going to class, because her dad had taught her to look at shit and SEE. I'm not making it up.

When your world is so heavily reliant on some sci-fi tech... you should genuinely think about it first. To me saying “the protagonist is just special and she knooooows everything because meh” doesn't cut it. It's a copout to write a book about a magical perfect teenage girl who becomes the most important, world-saving creature ever, while super scientists are also available. YA heroines are always the highest form of intellectual people and for some reason adults just deteriorate after 20. None of them are good for anything.

The totally obvious love interest is a cardboard cutout as well, mysterious dark guy genius youth and all. Who will fall for Emika for sure, because she is just so cool and so smart and so pretty. Blegh.

There is no way I'm reading more of this. It's so trope-filled and lame. It gives nothing special to you and it's cheesy.

Good night, I'm too cross with this to go on.