Review: Wildcard by Marie Lu

Deciding how to write down my thoughts about this book will not be easy. I wish I could say that I loved this second and final book the most. But that would be so very far from the truth. I didn't like this book. And I am feeling pretty heartbroken about it. I enjoyed re-reading Warcross. And had such high hopes for this final one.

Those hopes were pretty much crushed, to be honest. I'm giving Wildcard two stars. Which feels like a lot, considering I feel that all this book gave me was heartbreak. And it wasn't even sad. It was just bad. At least to me. This book was sadly nothing at all like what I had wanted it to be. Will try my best to share the why.

I hate feeling disappointed when finishing a book. Which I very much did when finishing Wildcard. I wish I had not felt this way, but I did, and I will be sharing my thoughts and feeling about this book with you all. Most will not be positive at all, sadly. And there will be spoilers about a few certain things, but not about the plot and such. Shall start by sharing my feelings about the writing. It bothered me a lot when re-reading Warcross, though I felt like it was a bit better in this one. But I also connected even less this time. I did not like Emika at all. I didn't like her way of thinking. So yeah, maybe the writing was worse, for me. Wildcard takes place three days after the end of Warcross. And takes place over about a week. Again told fully from the point of view of Emika.

This is the part where I should be able to say that I loved Emika, like I did in book one. But, yeah. I did not. I very much did not like her in this book. It might be only me that feels this way. But I simply did not like her. I did not like her thoughts in this sequel. Or her actions. Book one ended with her leaving Hideo, promising to hunt him and stop what he had just invented. This entire book is all about that. Her thinking about how bad Hideo is now, how awful his invention is, and how she is going to stop him. Got tired of it.

Yet at the same time she has feelings for him, somewhat. This book is also about figuring out more about Zero, whom we learned in book one is Hideo's lost brother. Last year I was worried there would be a love triangle. There was no hint of this at all. Instead, I didn't care at all about the romance. Ugh. Because I did not see at all why Hideo would be in love with Emika. Shrugs. I didn't see it. Which makes me sad. They are not together much in this book, but there are some few very cute scenes of them and I did love those.

But those small and very few scenes were the only parts of this book that I did love and like. And enjoyed learning about Zero and his past, figuring out what happened when he got kidnapped as a child. And why he now does not seem to care about Hideo at all. But, well. It felt too easy. This whole book did. Way too convenient. Like when she learned about that past, how she learned it. Too easy. And the past was pretty horrible, yet not that horrible, and I found that I did not care nearly as much as I wanted to. Disappointing.

Anyway. Emika and Hideo. She spends this whole book trying to stop him, yet he is barely in this book at all. It is about how horrible he is now, with what he created. I suppose I am the only one that did not think what he did was that bad. Yet Emika thinks all the time about how it was the worst. I mean, at one point, she compares Hideo to a person that kidnapped and hurt children. Yeah. What. What Hideo did was not that bad at all. Sure, it wasn't a good thing, but his reasons for it was good. Hmph. Emika did not see that.

And I simply did not like Emika in this book. I cannot explain it better than that. In book one, her Warcross teammates were just there. They did not seem like they were friends with Emika at all. And yet in this one they are all suddenly best friends and she cares about them so much. What. It has only been three days since the end of book one. Where did these huge friendships come from? Yeah, I did not get it. There are a few new characters too. Like Jax. I liked her a lot. But Emika's feelings toward her were too confusing.

There is so much happening in this book. Yet nothing happened at all. I found it to be boring most of the time, and when I finally enjoyed what was happening, Emika went back to her thinking about Hideo. I did not approve. They are still so adorable together. But they are barely together in this book at all. I have not shared most of this book at all. But tired of writing things down now. I sadly did not like this book. And the ending was not exciting to me, at all, and so much was missing from it. Disappointed and just sad. Sigh.

I see that most are already loving this book. And I'm sure there are few people that will feel the same way that I did. But to be honest, I don't understand the love for this book. At all. Which makes me feel bad too, haha. But everyone is free to like what they want. And for me, this book was not good at all. And I am so very disappointed about it. I wanted to love it so badly. I wanted it to be the perfect final book. But it was not. Not to me. I can only hope that I will forget about it fast, because this disappointed feeling is no fun.

Huge thank you to Penguin Random House International for sending me the free ARC copy of this book to read and review. I'm sorry I did not like this book, but I'm thrilled with the chance to read it early. And so happy to own this most gorgeous ARC for my collection, which I will still keep, despite my feelings about this book. As I do adore Marie. Wildcard ended up not being a book for me at all. There were parts I liked, but they were very few. Though I do not feel the same, haha, I know that a bunch of you will love this one.

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