BZRK - Michael Grant
Warning – may contain spoilers
Publisher: Electric Monkey
First published: 2012
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 407
Blurb: A global war is raging
You can't see it
It's happening inside you
And it changes everything
Sadie McLure wants to find her family's killers. Noah Cotton needs to know what drove his brother insane. Their search for answers will throw them into the astonishing world of the nano - where biots and anobots battle for supremacy, and the twitchers who control it all fight to stay sane.
It's a fight for free choice. Every day could be their last. They've never felt more alive.
History of my copy: I received the whole BZRK series as a birthday gift for my 17th birthday. I've only now gotten around to reading it, oops! This is not the kind of book I would instantly pick up for myself, but I loved Michael Grant's Gone series, hence why I was bought this series.
Plot: BZRK follows a mismatched bunch of young adults as they fight both in the macro and the nano against the Armstrong twins, who are looking to control the planet to 'make it a better place'. Whilst the general concept of young adults vs 'villains who want to control the world for the greater good' is far from unique, Grant put an interesting spin on it with the introduction of nanobots for mind control.
Setting: The setting, at least on a macro scale, wasn't a strong point of this book, but it didn't need to be. However, the description on the nano scale of the human body was incredibly eerie, and well written. It really portrayed the horror of seeing the human body, including brain, up close, especially for Sadie and Noah as they discovered this for the first time.
Characters: Another aspect of this book that I loved was the characters. They were all unique and rather just being 'damaged' for the plot's sake, I felt like it was well rounded and addressed, which makes a nice change.
To read or not to read: Read. Although BZRK is not my typical book and, even after reading, still wouldn't be something I would pick up myself, I really enjoyed it and do think it is worth the read.
