Glitch (Glitch #1) by Heather Anastasiu

Glitch (Glitch #1) 

Heather Anastasiu

371 pages

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Release Date: August 7th, 2012

Rate: Loved it

In Zoe's society, people doesn't feel anymore. Not pain, not love... nothing, and that means no war. Or at least, that's what they have told them.

After a big war that almost killed everyone, humanity were too scared to not listen to the informatic corporations that promised to make a better world. The only thing people needed to do was to implant in their brains a chip that would wipe any trace of humanity that could live in them and that would destroy every emotion, thoughts or desires, replace it by a daily feed from the Link network and the only desire to fulfill the wishes of the Community as productive drone.

When someone starts to malfunction is called glitch and when Zoe starts glitching, every feeling, own thought or desire she has been deprived from, comes in a rush. The color of the hair of a student from her class, the color of the eyes of a boy she sees in a market, even the need to draw what she sees or what she yearns to remember, are really new for her, but she learns fast. But this is not the only secret she's keeping from her Community. She has a power. An uncontrollable telekinetic power that only seems to work when she really is danger or someone near her is in danger.

Passing unnoticed by the Community multiple security systems isn't easy, but everything becomes more complicated when she spends a time in the outside and she seems to not remember a thing. Not what happened or who is the boy who keeps following her, Adrien. Furthermore, Maximin, Zoe's classmate, is glitching, too, and want to be with Zoe like the old people did. He wants Zoe to be part of his family and this is the only thing she years the most.

With a lot of promises, betrayal and love, Zoe needs to save herself and the other glitches from the community and remembering Adrien is one of the things she needs to do in order to find her true self.

"I loved you before I even knew the name for it. Everyday I'd sit beside you, inhaling your scent, looking at your beautiful face. Every night, dreaming about you. You eclipsed everything else. It was you. Always you."

We were really hooked by the dystopian style of the story. Living underground should be claustrophobic, but Zoe's people need to life underground because they have been told that the surface is toxic after the bombs that exploded the D-day.

We thought that everyone would be robots and that the main character would, somehow, start feeling something, like a human being. But we were wrong, wrong, wrong! They are all humans, but someone have installed in their brains a V-chip to kind of control them. They are like controlling them, depriving them from their own thought, desires or feelings in order to keep the peace in the world and to prevent that something like D-day happens again. Or so they say. The way they use people, only for their own profit and to work as slaves, is intolerable. And when they are not useful they deactivate them, aka, they killed them.

As you can imagine, Zoe and her friends are going to start some kind of rebellion, or are planning to do it, so it promises a lot this book. The fact of being special and being different from the people of her society is something important and even more when there's some kind of prophecy, because Adrien, who can see the future, saw Zoe leaving the Rebellion. Interesting, right?

But the best part comes now, Book Addicts. There's a love triangle! Yay! The ones we like. In one side  there's Adrien. Sweet, rebel, good-looking and good Adrien. He started to fall in love with Zoe through her visions from the future. Visions of Zoe finding out colors and watching life from a perspective that made Adrien want to fight even more for a future. So sweet. We are Team Adrien without thinking it!

On the other side is Maximin or Max. We hate this guy. He is a possessive, moron, obsessive and a douchebag. He wants to make Zoe sleep with him and he only thinks in that. When he's promising true love to Zoe he's going behind her back and betraying her in more than one possible way. He's always trying something with Zoe and we were suffering every time they were together and couldn't understand why Zoe wouldn't slap him or punch him in the face!

Well, we can understand her. She feels like her family does not feel anything for her, because of the V-chip that deprives them to feel a thing. She wants more than anything to be in someone's mind and to know that someone cares about her. So when Adrien keeps her distance to let her remember their time in the surface, she starts to know glitching Max. He promises her a family and she accepts it. Why not?

The fascinating part of the story is that Zoe and the kids like Zoe, that the Community implanted the V-chip in their brain, when they start to glitch, they start to learn how to feel, how to think and what everything they feel, desire and think means. It seems pretty normal to us, but it's not. And that's why we see Zoe as more than a hero or a symbol of a future rebellion. She's a survivor and a fighter. She's learned how to feel and she'll do anything for the people around her. 

"She is not the princess locked away in the fortress and you are not some hero who's going to save her."

We really liked this story and strongly recommend this book. It's not one of the Summer Reads we have been talking about, but this is a good book to stop the routine this summer. This science fiction and dystopian story, full of action, love, betrayal and technology, would make you want to be part of the society and help Zoe. The only think we didn't quite like is the insta-love moment from Zoe. 

However, we strongly recommend this book and think you're gonna like it as much as we did. If you haven't read the Glitch series, now is a good time to do it since the third book is going to be in our bookstores next month. 

Don't hesitate, Book Addicts, and give an opportunity to this wonderful science fiction & dystopian story.

"We stood, holding each other's faces, memorising every last detail. I was deperate with my own need to capture this last, lingering moment, desperate to forget the horrible sink at the pit of my stomach telling me all this would be lost forever once they pulled the chip out. Please don't let me forget."

Julian Morris as Adrien

Lucy Hale as Zoe

Nolan Gerard Funk as Max