Life as we know it doesn’t exist anymore; due to epidemics, climate change, pollution, etc. humanity has decided to leave ‘’downcountry’ and to move to virtual reality aka ‘upcountry’. The story unfolds through two different POV; the first one is Eirale, a young soldier who graduated from Nile Military Academy and now works for NileCorp’s private forces ‘downcountry’. Her life completely changes once she is framed for murder by Nik Grant, an anarchist she was tasked to stop. The second POV follows Lia, who will soon graduate from Nile Military Academy, but has to team up with her arch nemesis for her last exam.

First of all, I loved the concept of ‘downcountry’ and ‘upcountry’ and all the little glimpses we get of how things have evolved and how the majority of our lives are now lived virtually. You can tell Chloe Gong really thought about the impact this way of living would have on humanity and how AI is - and will - impact us more and more. To name a few; I found the concept of the ‘Wakeman syndrome’ fascinating and also how having a vidéo isn't evidence enough and needs to be corroborated by eye witness testimony because it’s so easy to make a deepfake.

The book is very plot driven and there’s a lot of action taking place. You never endure the risk of being bored.

I found out one of the but plot twist quite early in the book and wished that the actual reveal could have happened earlier so we would have had more time, with the characters to sit with this information and understand how it impacted everyone.

As I said it’s a very plot driven book and I felt I didn’t get to know the characters in depth and felt (no pun intended) very disconnected from them. I also didn’t enjoy the ‘romance’ part of the book because of that and didn’t really care what would happen to the different characters. I kept on wishing we would have seen more of Lia during her school years to better understand her connection to her arch nemesis because they have know each other for years but we only get glimpses of their relationship.

Thank you to NetGalley, Chloe Gong and Hodder & Stoughton for an e-arc of this book 🖤

Minor spoilers!
.my thoughts.
Chloe Gong YOU MASTERMIND?!?!

I'm genuinely in love with this book? The way it was written was mass perfection, the characters? Funny, intriguing, and captivating. The plot was absolutely shocking, the twists I did not expect at all! I was way shocked, and smiling because I have never felt like that in a longer time.

From reading about the old Shanghai of 1920s where there's a strange epidemic, we are transported into this cyberpunk place, where the year is 2038, and everything has been mass developed, and divided into upcountry and downcountry.

The Medan orphans in Atahua, are supposed to join the Nile Military Academy and become a soldier in work, or be turned in as a spy. It's the same as Eirale did, and Lia is doing, but both are small pieces of a larger potrait, one they both won't able to believe, because I didn't either.

The plot was executed very perfectly, even when I was thinking about how everything is, the second half practically bombshelled it on me. Like it's eating everything inside me to not have the second book in my hands to read.

Starting off from the characters, all have their own potential that I loved, they delivered the exact thing and I enjoyed having them onscreen.

Lia Ward, genuinely I loved her so much, her teasing Kieran and Rayna was the best, and it takes everything in me not to go inside the book and hug her after the truth she finds out </3.

Kieran Murray, the nemesis, is the man, actually he is, the way he competes with her on everything!? Oh my, and when he knew where to find her has me like🤭🎀. I honestly don't know the fact what I'm gonna do when I get second book, because he's the mastermind here too!!

Eirale is a strong character, and the way she fights Nik at every steps has me intrigued, like how come she does it? she's very intelligent and I ought to be like her bahaha.

Nik Grant is the smartest one, first of all him planning everything smartly till the very end has me on a good hold, intrigued generally.

I actually don't have enough words to describe how much everything is done perfectly to an extent I want the second book NOW!!!! The romance is a subplot too, but it takes all my heart!💓.

Generally Netgalley took my ability to write quotes so I have none of them right now and I can't reopen it makes it even worse! :(, like I wanna go back to my bbs💓

Convincing y'all to read this if you love sci-fi, cyberpunk, angry love confession in the rain [you heard it right] and found family kinda with friendship vibes, and also mastermind plotting.

Unfortunately the arc is near unreadable. Sentences have no spacing. If the publishing house fixes it, I can try to read again. But as it is, the formatting issues means that the arc is not readable by any standard.