ARC Review: “Glitch” by Heather Anastasiu

Glitch (Glitch #1) by Heather Anastasiu

3 stars

In the Community, there is no more pain or war. Implanted computer chips have wiped humanity clean of destructive emotions, and thoughts are replaced by a feed from the Link network. When Zoe starts to malfunction (or “glitch”), she suddenly begins having her own thoughts, feelings, and identity. Any anomalies must be immediately reported and repaired, but Zoe has a secret so dark it will mean certain deactivation if she is caught: her glitches have given her uncontrollable telekinetic powers. As Zoe struggles to control her abilities and stay hidden, she meets other glitchers including Max, who can disguise his appearance, and Adrien, who has visions of the future. Together, this growing band of glitchers must find a way to free themselves from the controlling hands of the Community before they’re caught and deactivated, or worse. In this action-packed debut, Glitch begins an exciting new young adult trilogy.

This review is based on an ARC provided by NetGalley. You can pick up a copy for yourself on August 7, 2012!

Oh YA romance, you have struck again.

If you have read many of my reviews, then you know I hate insta-love. I literally headdesk every time I read a book where it happens, especially when there is a love triangle involved. Glitch is no exception to what seems to be a YA norm these days. But as if that wasn’t enough, then it got strange. Really strange.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

When I began reading this book, I thought it was really awesome. The world of Glitch is excellently laid out. I have trouble remembering the shortcuts for copy and paste on my computer, but I easily understood the ins and outs of this entire population who basically has USB like ports connected to their brains. That, ladies and gents, is no small feat. The descriptions of Zoe’s first glitches in the book were also excellent; I really felt what it was like for her to all of a sudden feel all these emotions and see all these colors that she had no name for. I was freakishly excited for that to continue.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

I hate putting spoilers in my reviews, but this is one I just have to mention. I was actually really digging a plot twist that happened about a third of the way through. In a nutshell, Zoe gets caught and Adrien saves her by taking her to the surface. He takes her home, tells her he’s been having visions of her being the leader of the resistance and then they fall in love with a snap of the fingers.

But there’s a problem. The whole time, Zoe had a memory jammer in her port. When they send her back into the Community, they have to take the memory jammer out and she forgets everything.

I had many applause for that, until it started being handled strangely. The plot reset doesn’t have the impact it could have if it had focused only on Adrian and Zoe. Instead, they bring Max into the picture.

And Max creeped me out.

He is the other point of our love triangle, but I have no idea why. His glitching turns him into the randiest teenage boy ever. He is instantly creepy possessive of Zoe, and also has severe anger management issues. I believe this was supposed to make a point about the impact of glitching and having emotions or whatever, but he just creeped me out. Especially when he was trying to get into Zoe’s pants. That was the most awkward thing ever.

But not to worry, folks! Because–even though the time Adrien saved her has been wiped from her memory, Zoe is still fantastically sure that he’s her one and only and they are meant to be together forever. Because she’s known him for a few days and he isn’t trying to get into her pants OR have anger management issues. At least that’s a good choice.

*END SPOILERS*

I almost wish that the ending had been longer. So many exciting things REALLY started happening, but I felt that they weren’t fleshed out enough. The plot points made a vague amount of sense, but not enough time was spent on them to really get the impact they should have. That said, there was certainly nonstop action going on, which always makes me happy, so I’m willing to excuse that as long as maybe we’ll get some retrospective insight into what was really going.

All and all, Glitch was an interesting book. It suffered pretty badly from cliché YA romance, but the action and the world building tried to make up for it. The glitcher powers were pretty fantastic–especially Zoe’s–and I really loved the description of how she uses that power. Now that Max is out of the picture (at least for a little bit), I think the story can only go up from here. The story really does have potential, and now that the romance nonsense is out of the way I’m excited for what will happen next.