The following article originally appeared in Juniata High School's newspaper The Arrowhead.  

The latest book from best-selling author Marie Lu is Warcross. It takes place in a world where virtual reality is used by everyone and everything. Warcross isn’t just a game — it’s a way of life. People can make fortunes off of the competition going on in Warcross, or they could lose everything. For Emika Chen, Warcross is a way to pay the bills by tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. Working as a bounty hunter  and hacker, she accidentally beams herself into the World Championship of Warcross, a competition that everyone (including the game’s creator) sees. However, instead of arresting her, the creator offers her a job at his company. He is in need of a spy on the inside of the Warcross tournament in order to unearth another hacker’s plans, and he wants Emika for the job. Suddenly thrust into the world of Warcross, Emika struggles to maintain her secrecy while also trying to infiltrate the game that no one should be able to hack in to. 

Warcross is a thrilling read; I flew through it in a mere two days, and I loved every page of it. While there were some slow parts throughout the book, it was worth pushing through. Slower scenes allowed the reader to truly grasp the abstract concepts they were being presented with, which was helpful. However, the ending is entirely predictable. I love Marie Lu and her work; I have read all of her books and am always thoroughly entertained. However, I’ve realized that her books all have relatively the same structure and formulation of the plot, thus making all of their endings similar. I hope that Lu can find a way to add some structural variety to her novels. Regardless, Warcross was an amazing read for me, and I give it an 8/10.