Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders. (Cover and synopsis from Goodreads.)

Caution:  Here Be Zombies…

But not your typical kind of zombies.  At least, not all the time.  Wait, let me start over.  I am not really a zombie person.  At all.  Every time I think about reading a zombie book (and I do think about it, because I own two zombie books and have yet to read them), I think about that guy who ate the other guy’s face IRL a couple years ago and I get freaked out and can’t do it.  And I definitely can’t do zombie shows.  I’ve heard The Walking Dead is fantastic, but I know I’d be hiding behind my hands or my blanket for 95% of the show, and having nightmares about the things I did see before I was able to cover my eyes.  And while I think the White Walkers are a fantastic, creepy super villain, I am already covering my eyes enough when I watch Game of Thrones.


But in Reboot, I didn’t feel grossed out.  Wren and the other Reboots are zombies, yes, but they have feelings, they still think and reason and fall in love.  It’s true that there is that little thing about them already having died before, and now they’re not really “alive” like they were when they were human, and there are some kinda graphic (but not-too graphic) descriptions of Reboots having their legs broken or their arms pulled out of the sockets and then shoved back in.  Stuff that if I saw in a movie might gross me out a bit, but in the book it really didn’t bother me.  And yes, there are some Reboots who act a little more like the classic zombies that we all know and–ahem, some of us–love.  But that was brief and I don’t want to go into it too much because of spoilers.


But I just want to say that if you’re thinking about reading this book and you really don’t like zombies like me, you might still enjoy it.  Don’t just dismiss it because these characters are kinda zombie-ish.  And if you love zombies, don’t go into this book thinking of the kinds of zombies from The Walking Dead.  Because you’re not really going to get them.  But I do think that Amy Tintera has come up with a fresh new look at this zombie fad, and the characters she has created kind of seem like a mixture between zombies, vampires, and werewolves.  Well, to me, at least.  And I think that’s a pretty cool idea, and something that I haven’t seen before (with the exception of vampire/werewolf hybrids in The Vampire Diaries, but Reboots aren’t like that).


Filled With All Kinds of Goodness…


Reboot kept me intrigued, because it’s a kind of post-apocalyptic period and it’s also quite a dystopian story, but it has all the action and twists and turns that I enjoy, plus a love story.  I liked a lot of the characters as well.  Wren was pretty badass and I liked that she was lacking a lot of emotion in the beginning, but she really had more empathy than she realized.  I loved Ever and Callum was also really great.  And I found myself cheering out loud quite a few times in this story.  And personally, if you can get me to talk out loud while I’m reading your book, you’re doing something right.


My rating for Reboot by Amy Tintera:

4 big stars.  I think this is a great debut and I can’t wait to read the rest of this series, plus anything else by author Amy Tintera!