Review: Arclight by Josin L. McQuein

Arclight

Author: Josin L. McQuein
Series: Arclight, Book One
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Genre: YA Science Fiction/Thriller
Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Release Date: April 23, 2013
Source: Mid-Columbia Libraries

Synopsis from Goodreads:

No one crosses the wall of light . . . except for one girl who doesn’t remember who she is, where she came from, or how she survived. A harrowing, powerful debut thriller about finding yourself and protecting your future—no matter how short and uncertain it may be.

The Arclight is the last defense. The Fade can’t get in. Outside the Arclight’s border of high-powered beams is the Dark. And between the Light and the Dark is the Grey, a narrow, barren no-man’s-land. That’s where the rescue team finds Marina, a lone teenage girl with no memory of the horrors she faced or the family she lost. Marina is the only person who has ever survived an encounter with the Fade. She’s the first hope humanity has had in generations, but she could also be the catalyst for their final destruction. Because the Fade will stop at nothing to get her back. Marina knows it. Tobin, who’s determined to take his revenge on the Fade, knows it. Anne-Marie, who just wishes it were all over, knows it.

My Review:

Wow. This book was amazing. It started off kind of slow for me and I thought that I wasn’t going to like it, but once it picked up, it completely swept me away. The story was so original, dark and intriguing that you can’t help but be completely sucked in. The Fade are these strange creatures that live in the Dark which has taken over most of the world. Light will kill them, both artificial and natural. The last remaining humans live in a kind of dome-like shelter they call the Arclight. The humans find Marina in the Grey, an area between the Light and the Dark. She has no memories whatsoever. She doesn’t know who she is or where she came from, but the Fade want her back so they begin attacking the Arclight.

For the majority of the book, Marina is lost and confused and is really just trying to figure out who she is. The rest of the humans despise her because they lost loved ones during her rescue and the threat of losing more continues as the Fade come after her. They blame her for their losses so Marina keeps mostly to herself, just trying to stay off of everyone’s radar. I felt really bad for her. She’s all alone in this place and can’t even remember if she has any family or what has happened to them.

Then, things start to get interesting when they capture one of the Fade and Marina starts to hear his voice in her mind. She is desperately trying to block it out and leans heavily on Tobin for help. Tobin is an angry kid. His father was lost to the Dark during Marina’s rescue mission. But unlike everybody else, he doesn’t seem to blame her. At least he tries not to. He tries desperately to carry on what his father wanted: to save Marina. So whenever she is in danger, he is there, protecting her. Tobin has suffered the loss of both his parents, but he is one of the only people that is nice to Marina in the entire Arclight.

Honestly though, it wasn’t really the characters that did it for me. I mean, they were fine and I enjoyed them and felt connected to them. It was the unraveling of Marina’s story that made me fall in love with this book. It was the tiny snippets of memories that would come giving the reader a clue about where to go next. It was the emotion and the feelings that were present in the book from both the humans and the Fade. The story was dark and contained many plot twists, some of which I saw coming, others that I didn’t. The mystery was so great that I literally couldn’t tear my eyes away or turn the pages fast enough. I highly recommend this to anyone who liked Partials by Dan Wells or Taken by Erin Bowman. Happy reading all! 

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