Review: With Zombies by Michael F. Stewart

With Zombies (Assured Destruction #3)

by Michael F. Stewart

Publication Date: March 31^st 2014

Publisher: Non Sequitur Press
Source: Kickstarter

Find This Book: With Zombies

Rating: 5/5

Being a read-to-review blogger for Stewart in the past, I naturally helped fund his Kickstarter campaign for book three back in March. This landed me with a nice paperback collection of the trilogy in April that I was dying to start! The wait until now fed my excitement and I was not disappointed.

            Michael F. Stewart has a knack for entrapping readers in his high tech-storytelling. I picked it up this morning around 10 and did not set it down until I finished at 2 (which says a lot considering it took me an hour to concentrate and read 20 pages of my psych book yesterday). I love getting immersed in Janus’s world of hacking and Shadownet. All of the funny pop culture references don’t hurt either (Star Wars is my favorite). It just really feels like he’s writing about and for the young adults of this new generation. The problems that Janus faces are a little extreme, but really they’re not so far off. They are problems that anyone could be going through and that’s part of what makes Stewart’s novels so interesting and relatable.

            In this book everything really pieces together, plot-wise. Questions that were raised in Assured Destruction and Script Kiddie are finally answered, but in an exciting and dramatic way. Everything finally comes together! Some writers can drag out their books and get caught up in telling emotions that make their stories boring. This was NOT the case. The stakes were raised, the plots were twisted, and I was super excited! Sure, Janus has been through a lot, she needed to sort herself out and show her more emotional human side, but made her even more relatable. I was rooting for her the entire 225 pages no matter what she was up to, Michael wrote so much heart and spirit into this young woman that it would be hard not to love her.

            One thing I especially liked about this book is that she relied on the people around her. With her family business still on the line, her mom being hospitalized, community service, not being able to miss school, and having to deal with a virus that has infected Ottawa, Janus has quite a lot on her plate. The first two books she tried to do things her own way, risking her life and getting severely injured each time. For this adventure Jonny is Janus’ rock, always being there for her and helping her to the best of his abilities. Honestly he’s a keeper and I really hope after everything they’ve been through that they stay together forever. On top of that, Jan calls in all of her friends to help her and their friendship was just the greatest thing to read. She never would have made it through without them! She can finally trust people and isn’t alone anymore.

            This book, as well as it’s counterparts are perfect YA contemporary fiction novels. The technological geek side of me was eager to eat up the words as quickly as possible. This is a also a book I would recommend to people who seek diversity when they read. Jan’s mom as MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and I think this was represented well. The author deals with each character’s disabilities flawlessly with out making them seem like they’re not a whole person.

Review: Script Kiddie by Michael F. Stewart

Script Kiddie (Assured Destruction #2)

by Michael F. Stewart

Publication Date:  August 31^st 2013

Publisher: Non Sequitur Press
Source: Author

Find This Book: Script Kiddie

Rating: 5/5

A copy of this book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Janus Rose is still up to no good in book two haha. She is now working on the side of good though. She is the newest member of the police department’s High Tech Crime Unit, where she’ll serve out her sentence of public service (from stealing data from old computers in book one). To evaluate Janus’s skills, she is given the laptop of a murderer and has to profile and expose the killer. On top of all that, her relationship with Jonny isn’t going so hot, Assured Destruction needs to hire a new employee that they don’t have the money to pay for, Peter is mysterious as ever, and Hannah is getting stalked by a creep. Can Janus possibly save everything?

Man this book was intense. Even after the scandal from book one, Janus keeps the Shadownet (deleting Jonny’s hard drive of course) and still tweets from all of her different personas. There is less mother-daughter action in Script Kiddie, simply because there is less ‘mother’. Janus is working with the police, getting driven around by Jonny, and spending extra time at school, on the internet, and manning the store. Her mom’s condition is getting worse and Peter is taking more control of things, much to Janus’s dislike, which I completely agree with. Peter gives me the heebie-jeebies and NOTHING is further explained about him! I’m awaiting a book 3 Michael!

While we wait I’ll highlight my likes and dislikes of Script Kiddie. The title of the name really bothered me at first. It seemed pretty ridiculous and childish after a cool name like ‘Assured Destruction’, but after the name was explained in the book the title instantly fit. The transition from Book 1 to Book 2 shows how, in perspective, Janus really is the bottom of the hacker hierarchy. Nowhere near the big leagues. A Script Kiddie. One thing that I REALLY hated was how much Janus thought about other guys (Karl and Hannah’s brother) and how much she relied on physicalities to sustain her relationship with Jonny. If she cared about Jonny, she wouldn’t compare him with others or point out his flaws or resort to being physical all the time. One thing I really enjoyed was Constable Ethan Chow and seeing him from different points of view before realizing it’s him. So adorable <3 but Jonny is still my favorite guy character. As usual, I love the incorporation of modern technology and social media in this series and also the way it ended yet again in a satisfying conclusion, but not a ‘happily-ever-after’. Realistic. This book dealt with more real world problems such as carding, illness, Internet stalkers, and debt. The book always keeps a light, yet serious tone with a subtle hint of dark throughout the plot and, again, was a really enjoyable read!

Review: Assured Destruction by Michael F. Stewart

Assured Destruction

by Michael F. Stewart

Publication Date:  March 22nd 2013

Publisher:  Non Sequitur Press
Source: Authors

Find This Book: Assured Destruction

Rating: 5/5

A copy of this book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Janus is your typical teen going through High School, aside from the fact that her father walked out on her and her mother and Janus doesn't know why, her mom is now in a wheel chair, their shop is close to shutting down, and to top it all off Janus is an unappreciated computer genius. No exactly typical.

So, Janus and her mom run 'Assured Destruction' where they assure the destruction of hard drives for people. Except, not all of them meet the mouth of Chop-chop. Janus has a place called The Shadownet. She goes through hard drives and pieces together a persona from the information on it. She then puts these people on the Internet. They're like a family to her, their infractions are each a different part of her. JanusFlyTrap, Gumps, Heekleena, Frannie, and the new recruit Paradise57. Things were great, her biggest problem was Chippy the computer science teacher who she had a mutual dislike for. That all changed when the hacker attacked. Her Online refuge is getting destroyed piece by piece, and she is getting pushed into a world of reality and relationships with real people.

Not only is this way more serious than she ever imagined, her mother is also starting to date a new guy named Peter and now that she notices, Janus is having some boy trouble of her own.

I love the tension between Janus and her mother throughout the book. It completely realistic and reminds me of an over-the-top exaggeration on my own relationship with my mom (we don't agree on things very often). The way technology is incorporated into the story was great. I mean, I wasn't expecting much (the whole e-book thing is still skeptical to me haha) but this book actually blew me away. I genuinely loved the modern writingI style and how the book didn't end in a 'happily ever after' sort of way, but it was still satisfying. I totally wasn't expecting the plot twists, I ended up feeling emotions for the characters instead of just 'reading from the sidelines' and I couldn't help but root for Jonny's success as far as relationships go hehe. There WAS a bit of a love triangle, but the fact that the book wasn't revolved around it at all was awesome. I thought is was really cool that Jonny spray paints and is artistic, while the book also brought up real world issues about the modern high the world such as bullying on social media, how easily pictures spread, hackers, identity theft, child pornography etc. it was really quite interesting. The book is told in a very new generation social media sort of fun lingo with the occasion tweets from her different selves. It was really enjoyable to read :D