Krista Reviews: Eve Silver's - "Rush"

So what’s the game now? This, or the life I used to know?

When Miki Jones is pulled from her life, pulled through time and space into some kind of game—her carefully controlled life spirals into chaos. In the game, she and a team of other teens are sent on missions to eliminate the Drau, terrifying and beautiful alien creatures. There are no practice runs, no training, and no way out. Miki has only the guidance of secretive but maddeningly attractive team leader Jackson Tate, who says the game isn’t really a game, that what Miki and her new teammates do now determines their survival, and the survival of every other person on this planet. She laughs. He doesn’t. And then the game takes a deadly and terrifying turn.

Hardcover, 361 pages  Published June 11th 2013 by Katherine Tegen Books  ISBN  0062192132 (ISBN13: 9780062192134)

This was a book that left me with more questions than answers, which is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to a series. It is also a story that will one moment be in a normal high school setting connecting with friends, and the next in a high-paced fast action fight scene. .

Gamers will appreciate the way this world is put together. There are points that can be gained and lost; energy or power gauges that maintain whether you stay in the game or die. There’s also the fact that in the end it’s always your life that is at risk and not all team members are team players.

The chapters vary between Miki’s life at school and knowing that any moment she can be pulled from it. The real world pauses while the game is played, to return exactly to the moment she left, having to resume as if all is normal again. There is little to no contact with the other team members while in the real world, and if you die in the game, you die in real life. The jumping back and forth between each world was a little off-putting to me, because personally, I couldn’t understand how anything besides fighting the Drau was important any more once you learn of their existence. But it’s all part of the game, you don’t get to choose when or where. It just is.

It is a plot driven story with a focus on the Game. Characters and world building come next, right in time to get you pumped up for the continuation for what will happen next. With very little downtime to develop any more than basic friendships and least of all a romance, Rush is a science fiction adventure story of survival.