Joint Review: Rush by Eve Silver

Author: Eve Silver
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Date of publication: June 2013

When Miki Jones is pulled from her life, pulled through time and space into some kind of game—her carefully controlled life spirals into chaos. In the game, she and a team of other teens are sent on missions to eliminate the Drau, terrifying and beautiful alien creatures. There are no practice runs, no training, and no way out. Miki has only the guidance of secretive but maddeningly attractive team leader Jackson Tate, who says the game isn’t really a game, that what Miki and her new teammates do now determines their survival, and the survival of every other person on this planet. She laughs. He doesn’t. And then the game takes a deadly and terrifying turn.

I thought Rush was an interesting premise.  It is definitely different from any recent YA books that I have read.  You are definitely thrown right into the action from the beginning, much like Miki is and have to kind of learn the ropes along the way.  I have to admit, the one thing I didn't like about the story was the lack of world building.  I'm still not a hundred percent sure what the game is and why they are pulling teenagers to fight the enemy.  I'm hoping in the next book, more details will be revealed.  

That being said, I liked the characters all around.  Miki is a strong female lead and one I found myself rooting for.  There is a small hint at a love triangle, but I'm not really sure it will go anywhere.  The book does end in a cliffhanger with unanswered questions.  The next book, Push, comes out in June, so hopefully some of them will be resolved.

I liked Rush.  Like Kari said, there wasn't a whole lot of explanation as to what the game was about.  Teenagers are randomly pulled out of their lives and thrust into a video game like scenario where they have to fight aliens to the death.  If they survive, they go back to their regular lives until the next time.  There's no explanation as to who gets picked, who the enemy really is, who does the picking, how long you have to keep "playing" etc.  So, there were a lot of questions in this first book.  I guess to make the reader keep on reading right?  I liked it though, so I'm interested to read the next book and fortunately it looks like I won't have to wait forever for the next book to come out!