I was lucky enough to win a copy of this from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and once again it was through a Shelf Awareness Giveaway! The premise at first didn't "grab" me, but I knew that as I had loved
Beautiful Creatures by both Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia, I would probably love this too, and I was right.
It started out a bit slow, I wasn't quite sure what was going on, and it did take a bit to get into it, but once I did, I was hooked. I am a huge science fiction fan, so the idea of an alien story seemed a bit more original to me in the current crop of YA novels.
The main character is Dol, short for Doloria. She doesn't have any family, because of The Day. The day when Earth was officially taken over by these aliens. They had machines that I'm guessing were some kind of electromagnetic pulse type, the made all the power stop, but mainly they killed people. For some reason, Dol was one of the lucky ones. Even though her family died around her, she lived. She doesn't know why she survived. She has been living in the Grass, with some interesting people, including the Padre, a priest, who has been really taking care of her. And she has a best friend, Ro. Ro seems to have something different about him as well. While Dol has a dot on her wrist, Ro has dots on his wrist as well. While Dol can feel what others are feeling, almost reading minds, Ro has a different strength/power, one more like rage. And together they can take away the hurt when it gets to much. But Ro gets Dol a birthday present. One that used electricity. Only this may be a bad thing, as it draws the Sympa soldiers, the government that is in cahoots with the Lords, as the aliens are called. Ro and Dol are captured, the Padre is killed by the soldiers. On the train back to the city, there is another prisoner in the car that Dol is in, his name is Fortis. Fortis is a merk, or so he says, he can get things, blow things up specifically. And he offers to help Dol get away. So there is an explosion, and she and Ro are able to escape, until some soldiers find them. One of the soldiers is a boy their age named Lucas. And Lucas is like them, he has dots on his wrist. But, besides that? He is the Ambassador's son. So while Dol thinks she can trust him, Ro doesn't see how.
They are captured and taken on to the city. Once there we get a new character in the story, Doc. Doc's not your normal character, he's a machine. And like Hal from
2001: A Space Odyssey, it is unsure whose side he is on. Fortis is able to get in through the computer somehow and connect to all of them, Dol, Ro, Lucas, and another person with the dots, Tima. Lucas's power is kind of like a love spell, everyone can't help but like him, and often they will be persuaded by anything he says to them when he wields his power. So of course, Dol does feel attracted to him. But so does Tima, and she feels she has kind of a hold, or first dibs on him. Together they learn that they have a resistance to the Icon, the big thing that the aliens, or "Lords" have put in each of the cities, the thing that causes the deaths of people. Even the four of them don't completely make it unharmed, it does hurt their heads, to the point that they bleed out the ears when too close. They must figure out if together they have something that can help Earth fight against these aliens, these faceless aliens that no one, as far as they know, has ever seen.
Very good start! Can't wait to read on, as I said it just got better and better. Sorry to my followers as I was going to pass the ARC on, but now that I'm going to see the author at the Romantic Times Convention next week, I'll be getting it autographed for myself.
If you're interested in seeing more, you can go see the book trailer at the official website:
The Icon Series.
