Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Burn Out by Kristi Helvig

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi/Romance

Subjects: post-apocalyptic, survival, climate change, space

Setting: On Earth 300 years in the future, and in space

POV/Tense: 1st person POV, past tense: Tora

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 253 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Egmont

Summary/ product description: “A futuristic blend of Beth Revis's Across the Universe and Lenore Appelhans's Level 2, Burn Out will satisfy the growing desire for science fiction with a thrilling story of survival, intrigue, and adventure.

Most people want to save the world; seventeen-year-old Tora Reynolds just wants to get the hell off of it. One of the last survivors in Earth's final years, Tora yearns to escape the wasteland her planet has become after the sun turns "red giant," but discovers her fellow survivors are even more deadly than the hostile environment.

Holed up in an underground shelter, Tora is alone--her brilliant scientist father murdered, her mother and sister burned to death. She dreams of living on a planet with oceans, plants, and animals. Unfortunately, the oceans dried out ages ago, the only plants are giant cacti with deadly spines, and her pet, Trigger, is a gun--one of the bio-energetic weapons her father created for the government before his conscience kicked in.

When family friend, Markus, arrives with mercenaries to take the weapons by force, Tora's fury turns to fear when government ships descend in an attempt to kill them all. She forges an unlikely alliance with Markus and his rag-tag group of raiders, including a smart but quiet soldier named James.

She is shocked when James accidentally fires one of her father's bio-weapons--weapons designed to work only for her. She'd felt a strange pull to James from the start, but the odds of someone sharing her energy vibration are statistically miniscule. Tora must quickly figure out who she can trust, as she must choose between saving herself by giving up the guns or honoring her father's request to save humanity from the most lethal weapons in existence.”






My Review:  I was disappointed that I didn’t enjoy Burn Out as much as I wanted to. With the comparison to the Across the Universe series, I was sure I’d enjoy it. The only thing that I enjoyed was the main character’s voice. The narration was pretty good. Tora is funny and sarcastic.

But the story wasn’t as exciting as I hoped. There was no space travel till the very end. The story moved kind of slow despite the boom only being 253 pages. It took me three and half days to read this book, but that’s probably because I’ve been so busy. It took me about the same amount a time just to read a book that was over 500 pages right before this. Maybe it’s because this is the first book in a series, and it just didn’t have that many crazy things happen.

The book s set on Earth after the sun started burning out. The sun became an orange giant, I’m guessing, after a meteor with dark matter in it crashed into it. It doesn’t sound all that believable, but I know that if the sun grew that Earth would become a desert wasteland. Water would dissipate into gas form or into space. My question is, why couldn’t they just colonize Mars or Jupiter’s moons? And they just so happen to find another planet in another solar system that’s just like Earth.

There was a touch of romance, but it was more of a crush really. Tora really like James when she first met him. When she finally let him know, he had feelings back too, but then he supposedly want to kill her because Kale told him too, and then she hates him. And then she meets some other guy who knows Spanish and has a dog and like him too. Really not then kind of romance that I was hoping for. This book is similar to Black Hole Sun, but also kind of like some other dystopian series. It’s not a book I would recommend, but if you really enjoy books about decimated planets, then give it a shot. I don’t think I’ll read the sequel.


Cover Art Review: Interesting image and the type is large and sci-fi looking.



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