#lifel1k3

"You wanna help strip this thing, or you planning to just stand there looking pretty?"

BOOKS READ IN 2021 ♡ lifelike by jay kristoff

you are our dinosaurs, ana. and we will raise a new civilization on an earth littered with your bones.

                    In between the pages, I'm an emperor. An adventurer. A warrior and a wanderer. In between pages I'm not myself - and more myself than in any other place on earth.”

Day 27: JOMPBPC: Books And Pets

BOOKS READ IN 2020 — truel1f3; jay kristoff

Shelf confidence day 31

Final battle

Synopsis:  Best friends have become enemies. Lovers have become strangers. And deciding whose side you're on could be the difference between life and death. For Eve and Lemon, discovering the truth about themselves--and each other--was too much for their friendship to take. But with the country on the brink of a new world war--this time between the BioMaas swarm at CityHive and Daedalus's army at Megopolis, loyalties will be pushed to the brink, unlikely alliances will form and with them, betrayals. But the threat doesn't stop there, because the lifelikes are determined to access the program that will set every robot free, a task requiring both Eve and Ana, the girl she was created to replace. In the end, violent clashes and heartbreaking choices reveal the true heroes . . . and they may not be who you think they are.

A HUGE thank you to Random House Children’s via Net Galley for providing me an eARC of this in exchange for an honest review!

I should preface this by saying that I’m an absolute nerd for Jay Kristoff’s books so that means this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2020 and it...kinda let me down? I know, you see the 4 star rating and go ‘Whu?!’ but for me this wasn’t Jay’s greatest work.

As the third and final book in the LIFEL1K3 series, I expected this book to be JAM PACKED with action, explosions, twists, turns, and general Jay fuckery, which it was, but at the same time it just felt like too much to me. We had multiple POV’s, which I could have done without, and when the action hit, IT HIT! Over...and over....and over...and over, to the point that it felt very redundant and just boring after awhile. I get that our crew had to fight two major corps before even getting to the lifelikes but good god, it just felt like a lot.

Character wise we had a LOT of characters, which, thinking back on the first book, I wasn’t really expecting there to be this many in the final book. I loved all of them (except Preacher because screw him and Eve because screw her too) but I really feel like Lemon Fresh shined the most. In the first book, she’s the silly sidekick with a secret. In the second we get more of her backstory and she comes more to the forefront of this story. In this book, she just took the spotlight and SHONE in my opinion. If there’s one thing that Jay can do, it’s write a kickass female character.

If there’s one thing Jay can also do, it’s write a really hateful villain and that’s Preacher. To be honest, I shouldn’t be surprised that he lasted as long as he did because hello, it’s Jay Kristoff, but good god, was it just a tad bit annoying to see him keep popping up! I didn’t loathe him as I’ve loathed other Kristoff villains but he was just like an itch that wouldn’t go away! The other villains (hello, Jay again) didn’t feel as fleshed out as this guy. Gabriel was just wanting revenge for killing his love, and the other two leaders of the corps just, surprise surprise, wanted to take over the world. Nothing overtly original but again, twisted enough by Jay’s evil mind to really make you hate them.

Storywise, again, Lemon Fresh had the most growth and the best storyline out of the whole bunch. I think Jay may have gotten sidetracked between the first book and this one by how loud Lem’s voice was because Eve, our original protagonist, just seemed kind of shoved to the wayside when it came to story arc. By this book, I honestly didn’t care about her because she just became annoying and triffling because wah, people lied to me! She would not let go of the fact that Lem hid her deviate-ness (out of fear of persecution and death, mind you) and so all of humanity should suffer! Give me a break! Even the ending couldn’t save Eve’s character for me because I just...didn’t care anymore.

Speaking of endings, this is not Jay’s best work. I hate to say it because I absolutely worship his work and think he’s a brilliful writer but considering how long it took to get to the climax, it just happened...and very quickly. I kept expecting the big fight at the end to take a good chunk of time and it didn’t, and I was very unsatisfied. I felt as if the showdown with Gabriel was rushed and not done as well as it could have been. It felt like an afterthought, tbh.

All in all, I love the trilogy. I think Jay is a mastermind at coming up with his own worlds and vernacular for his worlds. He writes truly engaging characters and this story is definitely a great way to showcase that. It’s not his best work but I enjoyed it for what it was and will definitely recommend this trilogy to anyone looking for original YA Sci-Fi.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐