Gypsy Reviews

Originally posted at Gypsy ReviewsI received an eARC from HarperTeen via Edelweiss. Thank you!I had high expectations for Rush however those were dashed once I started reading it. Another case of instalove, a boring romance, confusing scenes and frustrating characters. Sure, there were exhilarating scenes but very few of them and not near action-packed enough to make me forget about the romance.Miki Jones has to deal with the recent loss of her mother to cancer and in attempting to save a girl’s life, Miki is pulled into the Game. Now I thought Miki was going to be pretty badass and awesome because she seemed sure of herself, knew kendo, seemed independent and self-sacrificing since come on, she threw herself in front of a car to save a little girl! As the story progressed, Miki didn’t bother me as much as her interactions with other characters. Let’s start with her best friend, Carly, who I think is the most annoying character of the book because she is so childish and halfway she gets into a fight with Miki and stops talking to her because of a guy. Miki doesn’t do much to defend herself and lets Carly walk all over her and I just couldn’t see why they were friends at all because Carly was selfish and highly overreactive. She didn’t give Miki the courtesy that Miki gave her and Miki was clearly a much better friend than Carly was. It seemed irrelevant as well since Miki had much bigger problems to worry about. I could have done without the Carly and Miki drama.Now Miki wasn’t the only one who found interacting with Jackson infuriating because their scenes were infuriating and frustrating. Heads up to guys, answering questions with questions is unbearable. Do not try this tactic. I understand that Jackson wasn’t allowed to reveal too many details but we hardly got any answers from him and it was question after question after question. There, honestly, is only so much one can take. Plus this was another case of instalove and creepy stalking happens too. Stalking isn’t romantic, it’s wrong and shouldn’t even be condoned, it’s a total invasion of privacy. Please authors, stop advocating stalking.One thing that really bothered me about Miki was her thoughts on this incident. I’m not gonna reveal much because it’s a spoiler but I just didn’t find it appropriate and she was overthinking it pretty much. I don’t believe they would have become friends because Miki only got to know her for about an hour or so? It was over exaggerated and it didn’t even fit with the other character’s personality. This part of the story didn’t make sense, it was quite out of character.Some characters were redundant such as Lucas, I didn’t see the point of introducing him if he was going to be hardly doing anything and not contributing to the plot. Carly’s friends were blending into the background, the fact that I can’t remember a single one of their names says something so we could have done without all of them. Maybe one or two. There were just too many characters that weren’t necessary to the plot. I was also miffed that we never got a conclusion to what happened towards the end when we saw Miki and her father as her father has a drinking problem so they got into a bit of a fight. Would have liked some closure on that front.The plot was done quite poorly, the main structure of the entire crisis wasn’t addressed very much although the story is mainly concentrated on that. I felt it was only barely touched at the surface and the main focus was still very much on Miki and Jackson and the relationships they had with the other characters. The ‘Committee’ who oversee the Game were underwhelming to say the least, I didn’t really feel fascinated or intrigued about the world in Rush and about the Drau either. The action scenes were definitely quite heart-pumping because of the Drau’s abilities and Silver wrote those scenes well but everything else was boring.Rush had an interesting premise and seemed to have potential to become an action-packed novel but it concentrated too much on Miki and Jackson. Some of the characters were really annoying and I wasn’t sold on the romance. Despite the bone-chilling action scenes, Rush disappointed me and I didn’t enjoy it very much. Needless to say I will not be continuing on with the series.Verdict: Skip it.