With so many YA series coming out as trilogies, it’s come to be an assumption of mind that all books of the genre will come in threes. Turns out, the Reboot series will end after only two books. Can that even be called a series? Whatever the case, this duology is being quite the rebel. [Drum sting]

The first thing I noticed when getting into Rebel is that we are no longer just reading from Wren’s perspective, but from her boyfriend’s, Callum, perspective as well. Initial thoughts? Oh God no… The last book to do this to us was the Divergent trilogy with adding Four’s perspective to the final book, and it was an experience I did not wish to repeat because of how little I enjoyed it. Then again, Callum isn’t much like Four. Thank goodness. I may have preferred to stick with Wren as the sole narrator to keep the momentum going and maybe allow for more to happen since we only need to interpret everything from one point of view, but this change was much easier to stomach this time.

“But Lauren, you were pretty annoyed with a lot of Wren’s inner monologue in book one because she lacked the confidence and antagonistic nature you would expect from a character with her background.” This is a good point person I just made up; the thing is that we’ve moved past all of that crushing part of the relationship building. She still doesn’t always fit my expectations in that she’s surprisingly comfortable with PDF and being in a relationship, but you can’t fault a girl for living life after death. You only die twice, right?

The relationship aspect of these YA novels is often the draw, but I was actually really intrigued by where this story was going to go. Following the events of book one, Wren has found herself more or less in change of the reboots that she helped break out of one of the HARC facilities as they make their way to a reboot camp in the middle of nowhere. Here she butts heads with the leader, Micah, over his strong opinion about the reboot/human relationship and where it should go in the future, and this really seems like it is going to be the major conflict from then on. In a way it is, but not quite how it is expected as Micah’s role in the book fades for the larger struggle. I could see this working over a trilogy, but it just felt as if many of the ideas and possibilities introduced by the author weren’t fully explored or committed to. Micah is just one part of the battle, but he was an interesting villain in his ideas that I really think he could have easily provided enough antagonism for the whole book, instead of being dwarfed by the bigger villain in this world.

Plus, maybe had so much not been bitten off we could have gone more in depth into the battles. So much happens “offstage” building to the final confrontation, and when we finally get to that showdown what is expected to be something of cinematic proportions challenging the glory of scenes from Lord of the Rings just doesn’t quite live up to expectations. Everything is over so quickly. Everything is so easy.

I may be a little disappointed with the overall book, but there is still plenty to enjoy here when it comes to plot points and characters. Take Addie. She was a great personality added to the mix and I would have taken even more chapters with her and Wren together. But with the need to put so much into this Rebel’s plot, a lot of the story elements just don’t evolve into what I hoped for them.

Final grade: 3.5 out of 5      Follow @BewareOfTrees