Black Out

Black Out #1

by Robinson Wells

Homeland meets Marie Lu's Legend in Blackout, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Ally Condie called "a thrilling combination of Wells's trademark twists and terror. Fantastic!"

Laura and Alec are highly trained teenage terrorists. Jack and Aubrey are small-town high school students. There was no reason for their paths ever to cross. But now a mysterious virus is spreading throughout America, infecting teenagers with impossible superpowers—and all teens are being rounded up, dragged to government testing facilities, and drafted into the army to fight terrorism. Suddenly, Jack, Laura, Aubrey, and Alec find their lives intertwined in a complex web of deception, loyalty, and catastrophic danger—where one wrong choice could trigger an explosion that ends it all.

Genres: Young Adult

448 pages, Unknown Binding

Reviews

[Jinianne Gorg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very intense.

[issacannafic · Rating 3 out of 5]

i throughly enjoyed the plot here, but the characters were the most boring and unoriginal characters down to their names and it made a large chunk of the book unenjoyable because of it.

[Curt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the Audiobook primarily for the reader, Ray Porter, who does a phenomenal job bringing this book to life.

There is a virus that gives teenagers different superpowers. Some teenagers know they have these powers and some have not had their abilities manifest. A small group of teenagers with superpowers are conducting terrorist attacks on the US and bringing it to its knees.

The scientific explanation of how this virus causes each infected teen to manifest superpowers is lacking. The government has a test for the virus and all the teenagers are rounded up and tested. Jack and Aubrey, life-long friends, are separated and we spend time as they try to get together again. Oddly enough, the government decides to militarize some of the kids (including Jack and Aubrey) to work to find and stop the bad teens.

Wells takes a clever approach to leverage the superpowers to fight back. Some of the superpowers are plausible enough, but others really go in the direction of X-Men.

The book is a quick read. The ending is not a cliffhanger but does set us up for book 2. I actually read the second book first by mistake and it is pretty decent too.

[Kiki Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the plot was better than the actual writing itself. It became very cheesy when the two main characters, Jack and Aubrey confessed their love for each other. I really felt tricked and deceived when there was so much happening in the last 20 pages yet it didn't answer the questions that I had. Having mutant like powers would be interesting, though I felt it didn't have enough detail about the powers or why it was caused.
My favourite character was Alec because he misunderstood the entire situation that occured with his friend Laura who didn't leave him for dead. Instead of finding out what really happened he just goes and decides to kill everyone which would be acceptable but not really. My least favourite character was Aubrey because she was a little too corny and movie-like in the action scenes. I feel in this book she was OP (over-powered) despite her one power. I would recommended reading this since it was a quick a read and it makes you think of life in a new perspective. I also think if this was a series it would be nice.

[Saskia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Action-packed story where superpowers are bestowed on teenagers by a virus; some are good teens, some are bad teens. Enter ... problems. I can't fault the action or the pace, and I can't even fault the likelihood of legally rounding up of all of the teenagers into camps on a whim (refer: Donald Trump), but I can fault the world-building. Unfortunately, without much explanation as to why the action was happening or the motivations of the protagonists, getting truly engaged was a struggle.

By most accounts it is worth finishing the duology as the world-building and explanations are forthcoming in the second book. Maybe one day.

3.5 stars.

[Zane Humphry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theme - Dystopian
Laura and Alec are highly trained teenage terrorists. Jack and Aubrey are small-town high school students. There was no reason for their paths to ever cross. But now a mysterious virus is spreading throughout America, infecting teenagers with impossible superpowers - and all teens are being rounded up, dragged to government testing facilities, and drafted into the army to fight terrorism. Suddenly, Jack, Laura, Aubrey, and Alec find their lives intertwined in a complex web of deception, loyalty, and catastrophic danger - where one wrong choice could trigger an explosion that ends it all.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

So really weird that there are only like 7 reviews for this book and it’s by Harper Teen and Ally Condie and Michael Grant blurbed it but whatever ahha. It wasn’t really that great. I didn’t care for the whole superpowers and terrorists that are teenagers. I actually went to look at the prequels novella but they want friggin $7.99 for 50 pages ummm no thanks. Anyways I would not recommend.

[Tristan Chitwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought it was very slow going, gave it until about page 40 then could not handle it any longer! Not saying its a bad book, just not for me!

[Shauna Christensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun to read a book set in Utah. Amazing teens with superpowers? Yes, please! This has been very popular in my HS library, so it was about time I checked it out!

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like to start off this review by saying that overall, I enjoyed this book. I think that if you like the kind of superpower apocalypse setting that the book has going on, you will like it too. I found the plot very interesting and it was what kept me reading. From the very start, my interest was more heavily in two of the four main characters, Laura and Alec, and it continued that way throughout the entire novel. This is mainly due to my interest in their motivations. The other two characters, Jack and Aubrey, felt much more generic in their actions and reasoning. Neither was overly annoying, more so just boring. The book also features a very light romance, but it felt so underdeveloped that at points I forgot that it was happening. Once again nothing distracting, just nothing amazing done with it either.

A thing other than the plot that I enjoyed was the variety of powers everyone has. The uniqueness of them is refreshing and I think the limitations of them are also properly shown. There was never a time where I was questioning why someone's power wasn't being used. There are not many answers to many of the questions that I had about what is happening and why, I assume that this is contained in the second book but I have not read it yet, so I do not know.

Everything that I have listed so far is minor enough in my eyes, that I would have probably rated it four stars. However, I was on the verge of giving it two stars because of the writing itself. Many times things are told to you instead of shown. You read character thoughts about what is going on, but as most of the book was in Aubrey or Jack's prospective, I found the commentary overall stale. I think that the writing was particularly rough in dialogue. I'd say most of all, I would describe it as a bit cheesy, especially in the aforementioned romance. But in the end, I think that the plot of the book can be grabbing if you look past everything else.

TL;DR
The book's strongest point is the plot, and overall I enjoyed it despite the cheesier writing. It wasn't revolutionary, but I don't regret reading it either. If a superpower dystopia sounds interesting to you, you may want to pick it up.

Pros
-Interesting plot
-2 of 4 main characters are interesting (2 are neutral)
-Unique superpowers
-Superpowers well balanced

Cons
-Cheesy writing
-Certain aspects feel under baked
-Many things left unresolved by end of book