Day One by Kelly deVos
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
RULE ONE: THOSE WHO PANIC DON’T SURVIVE IT’S AS TRUE NOW AS IT WAS THE DAY OUR WORLD EXPLODED INTO CHAOS
Jinx
Three months ago, all I wanted was to stay up late playing video games and pretending the world was fine. With my parents’ role in a massive political conspiracy exposed, I ended up on the run, desperate to rescue my little brother, Charles, from the clutches of The Opposition. I used to hate my father’s obsession with disaster prepping. But as I fight my way across a war-torn country and into a secret military research facility with only my stepsister to count on, I realize that following Dr. Doomsday’s Guide for Ultimate Survival might be our only hope of surviving to see Charles again.
MacKenna
Once, I had it all. The right backstory. The right qualifications. But my life as a student journalist was destroyed forever in the explosions that triggered the country’s meltdown. Now I’m determined to help Jinx get our little brother, Charles, back. But we also have to find our own reasons to survive. Somehow, I’ve become the first reporter of the new civil war. In a world where your story is your ultimate weapon, I have to become the toughest freedom fighter of all.
Day One
Teenagers in the middle of the second civil war!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💗💗💗
Heat/Steam: N/A
Story/Plot: 👏👏👏👏👏
World building: 🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 🤓🥸😎😤😳
The setting: The United States and Mexico
The Characters:
Susan (Jinx) Marshall – Seventeen years old, she took off with her family after bank bombings all over the country were blamed on her father and step-father and the world was falling into chaos. Since she was young Jinx was trained by her survivalist father in just about everything it takes to survive a zombie apocalypse, or what is actually happening in the world so she is more prepared than most teens. Though her main talent is computer hacking.
Mackenna Novak – Teen aged stepsister to Jinx. Her father is a former military man that worked for the largest bank in the U.S. and was framed for the bombings. Mackenna wants to be an investigative journalist at some point so she looks at everything as a story and she is intelligent. She gets along well with Jinx. The book alternates between her and Jinx’s points of view.
Toby Novak – Brother of Mackenna, he was in college prior to the bombings. Their group (family) is on the run from “The Opposition” (the political party of President Ammon
Carver) who basically stole the election. Ammon Carver’s mother brings the President’s daughter Annika to join them, trying to save her. Toby falls for her but she ends up going back to her father right away. Toby changes after that and starts being a bit shifty.
Gus Navarro – worked with Jinx’s father. Navarro was sent away by Jinx’s mother because she caught him with a Satellite phone and she thinks he was working for The Opposition which in addition to trying to capture them is creating a police state. He and Jinx were starting to fall for each other when he left. However he returns in this book right when the real traitor who framed both Jinx’s father and her stepfather for the crimes (including bombing American banks and killing over 2000 people). Gus has secrets and his background is not really known.
Harold “Terminus” Partridge – Jinx’s hacker friend that betrayed her in the first book. He returns and helps them in this book. Mackenna has a bit of a crush on Terminus.
The story is definitely engrossing. I like the premise and this book is less political than the first, though it didn’t bother me in the first book. Other than the fact “The Opposition” is basically the American Government and they are out to get our main characters. Jinx’s little brother is kidnapped by the Government and all Jinx and Mackenna really care about is getting him back safely.
Jinx is able to figure out her fathers key which is a computer program that will release all the bank money that was thought to be destroyed in the bombings (or something like that), and the Opposition knows that they have it. Also it seems that every where they go, people are keeping secrets from them. I hate in books when the characters find out some of the secrets then don’t tell each other. It seems very odd to me.
Mackenna found out some things about Navarro and she also knows that her brother is acting very strangely but she doesn’t mention it to Jinx. I hate when that happens. The two of them seem to be sticking together in this quest, though Jinx thinks the whole group is together but when Mackenna finds out these secrets she doesn’t tell Jinx so they can get to the bottom of things.
Though I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the turns this book took. There was futuristic technology terrific settings/locations and I loved Mackenna’s chapters and the way she had headlines and clips of news and they were sited as Letters from the second civil war. The book did well in showing how people have high political ideals but when push comes to shove the politicians and leaders end up being flawed on both sides. Every time I vote for president it seems the choice is between the lesser of two evils.
The book had so much action and went from place to place, it seemed to be non-stop action, but it does take place over many months of time. This would make a great movie or mini-series. It seems almost like a Jason Bourne action adventure movie, except Jinx is Jason. She has one goal, to get her brother back and they are being chased and infiltrated by evil forces throughout the book but they keep pushing towards the goal.
I voluntarily read & reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts & opinions are my own.
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