Review of "Rush"

"I wait for the next heartbeat, but it doesn't come."

     Eve Silver's debut YA novel, Rush, features classic clichés. First there's Miki Jones: the sporty, fun-loving runner who's suffered a tragic loss--her mother--and deals with it through a mix of kendo, exercise, and extreme neat-freakiness. Then there's Jackson, the guy you want to punch in the face and cry over every few pages. And the biggest cliché of all? These kids are pulled from their everyday lives and thrust into a real-life video game with deadly stakes, where they team up with others their age to kill alien invaders from a distant planet. You'd think this would be the greatest of the Do Not Reads. It isn't.

     Miki is a character with a lot of heart. Every second of her daily life is spent in a pain-numbing fog of passivity, or in anger. Even after so much time after her mother's death, Miki struggles to cope. Her only proven solution includes running, a strict diet, and cleaning the counter every morning, after counting and cleaning up the empty beer bottles her father has left out from the previous day. Her only friends are Carly, Deepti, and Kelly, three girls who are annoying on the surface but who really care about her, deep down. You get a sense of Miki's personality through the little things in her life, but you also get a sense of her when she's in the Game.

     In the very first chapter of the book, Miki dies. Or, she appears to die. Her heart stops beating and she can't move. When she opens her eyes, she's in a grassy clearing with three boys--Jackson, Luka, and Tyrone--and a girl--Richelle. At one end of the meadow, a screen appears with the previous battle's scores. Miki doesn't have time for questions; it's all she can do to strap on a green-screened wristband, grab a weapon cylinder and armor, and not throw up as the team is dropped into the middle of a crowded city. Their mission? Eliminate a nest of Drau, shimmering invaders from outer space.

     This book is the epitome of non-stop action. The battles are fast-paced and streamlined, while still retaining the hard, gritty feeling of reality. And I'd like to point out that Miki is, as they say, a BOSS. Several years of kendo have rendered her reflexes sharp, her instincts strong, and her body fully capable of taking out any opponent that comes her way. Once she gets the hang of her weapon cylinder, there is no stopping her.

     Rush isn't just an action novel, however. In the space between battles, Miki must deal with all sorts of struggles on the home front. Her father's drinking problem is getting worse. Her best friend, Carly, thinks she has stolen both Jackson's and Luka's attentions, and is giving her the evil eye. And then there's Jackson himself, who is mysterious and irritating in his own right. He is the person who undergoes the biggest transformation in this book, and it's exciting to watch.

     The characters in Rush are relatively clean-mouthed. As a general rule, they don't curse, and they certainly never drop F-bombs. But they do use "@$$" on occasion, and other forms of the word are used to describe people--Jackson in particular. There is plenty of violence, although not too much blood, as well as death and injury. Romance is pretty close to insta-love, but it's kept to kisses.

     If you're looking for a YA novel with romance, kick-butt heroes, and a troubled home life, Rush is the book for you. It's engrossing, it's well-written, and it's full of heart. The only things holding it back from an A-rating are the infodump near the end and the way Carly treats her friends. That said, I award Eve Silver's Rush four shining stars, and wait eagerly for the close of the series.