Rush

April 29, 2013
Adult author Silver (Body of Sin) makes her YA debut with a fast-paced story, first in The Game series, in which specially selected teens wage a secret war against invading aliens. Junior Miki Jones is the latest recruit, plucked from her normal existence to fight aliens hiding among humanity and help prepare the world for a full-scale incursion. It’s on-the-job training, laid out in the framework of a giant game, with points given for various objectives and deducted for certain infractions. She quickly develops a love-hate relationship with her taciturn team leader, Jackson Tate, and the more Miki learns about the “game” she’s caught up in, the higher the stakes become. Silver expertly intertwines Miki’s real life and missions, providing an exciting contrast as things get increasingly complicated. The gradual unveiling of answers, with Miki relentlessly pressing her teammates for information, occasionally gets frustrating and repetitive, but the payoff—as Silver reveals the true extent of the premise and its implications—is worth it. The result is a science fiction adventure that’ll leave fans demanding the next installment. Ages 14–up. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House.

April 15, 2013
Miki's understanding of reality completely changes when she's thrust into a deadly virtual game. Having recently lost her mother to cancer and dealing with her dad's alcoholism, the 16-year-old is trudging through life grief-stricken and angry. When she is hit by a truck while trying to save a little girl, Miki's broken body is suddenly whole again when she's "pulled" into an alternate dimension. Here, Miki's mission is to play a live-action video game. She earns points by terminating predatory alien creatures, the Drau. Battling at her side are four other gamers, the leader of whom is Jackson, a young man of few words and alluring looks. They are pawns of an unseen force, and it quickly becomes clear that a game injury deals real and agonizing pain and that destroying the aliens is much more than a game. The battle scenes are visceral and taut. The intricate, multilayered plot is inventive, twining hostile alien takeover (these guys are superbad, brain-eating beasts) around uncertainty about Miki's and Jackson's true heritage and their growing romance. The story, however, unfolds through a constant litany of questions from Miki, which has the effect of bogging down the plot and making Miki appear dense. Mind candy for those teen readers who love the thrill of the game. (Adventure. 13-18)

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2013

Gr 8-10- Rush is difficult to explain and at times difficult to understand, yet it is a compelling read. As Miki Jones, a junior at Glenbrook High, is "pulled from real life," thinking she is dead, she struggles to understand a Mad Hatter universe. She encounters Luka Vijic, a former friend who has returned to Rochester, New York, from Seattle. He tells her that he, too, was "pulled" and that they are both alive, except when they are on a mission. As long as they are successful in this game that is not a game, they get to return to their lives, a process that will repeat itself. Their goal is to kill Drau, alien beings seeking to conquer Earth. Plenty of aliens and conspiracies are juxtaposed with the ordinary world of a teen struggling to balance everything in her life. Some of the characters are stereotypical and two-dimensional, and aspects of the universe that Silver has built challenge the suspension of disbelief. However, most readers won't notice and will simply zip along, hoping to figure out what's really going on.-Saleena L. Davidson, South Brunswick Public Library, Monmouth Junction, NJ

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
Grades 9-12 There's no tunnel toward the light in Miki's near-death experience. Instead, she's flung together with a group of other teens in an alternate universe where they must battle the alien Drau or lose their lives. Although the alien battle is framed as the Game, Miki realizes that the stakes are high as she tries to unravel the truth behind these interstellar invaders. Silver complicates her story line with the welcome addition of an Edward Cullenlike hottie, Jackson Tate (whose true identity may be more terrifying than any vampire), and a jealous friend, Carly, who doesn't realize that Miki is being jerked from reality to the Game, rather than from boy to boy. A love triangle between solid boy-next-door Luka, Miki, and Jackson develops, but what readers may find most compelling are the habits of the Drau, whose crude attempts at human infiltration are as shocking as they are realistic. Whether teens read this for the romance or the science fiction, they'll finish eager for the second installment of the Game series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)