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MILA 2.0

MILA 2.0 - Originally posted at Gypsy ReviewsMila 2.0 no doubt is a thrilling sci-fi novel about a girl who discovers she is actually an android and I enjoyed reading about Mila’s android side and her abilities. However, the instalove and romance, for one, was unwelcome in this case as it was detracting focus from the main plot and just seemed so unnecessary. The personification of Mila’s android side was not well executed as she constantly referred to it as her ‘ugliness’ and the hidden meanings behind that sent a very distorted message that not being human was ‘ugly’.I found Mila to be quite annoying, she’s at constant war with her own feelings and feels that Hunter, the boy who she just meet a couple of days ago, is the only person who can make her feel ‘human’. She refuses to embrace her android side and fights to remain human and lashes out at her ‘mum’, whose every action was to protect Mila. Her thoughts were quite childish when she constantly latched onto the idea that Hunter was the only one who she could depend on because of the way he made her feel. When she was in danger, she would suddenly think of Hunter and I don’t really find that relevant at all to the story. I mean Mila, you’re in a life-threatening situation with other people’s lives in danger, do you really think you should be thinking about Hunter right now? It was rather annoying seeing mentions of Hunter pop up out of nowhere and obviously the instalove didn’t please me.I think it’s perfectly fine for Mila to be uncomfortable with her android side and have all these various insecurities but the way she referred to her android side didn’t sit well with me. She would call it the ‘ugliness’ inside of her and to me, it sent a message across that not being human was an ugly thing simply unacceptable. It is quite true that in our society, being not normal is not all socially accepted and no matter what. people are going to judge. But I feel the author should have also took the opportunity to convey the message that even though you may not be normal, it is okay because there are people that are going to love you no matter what. That once you embrace it, you can unleash your true potential. This was quite absent as by the end of the story, Mila hadn’t embraced the android side fully and still looked at it as the foreign side of her. It sent a very distorted message that did not sit well with me at all.It frustrates me very much when a character is never sure of what she is because I then become unsure of what the character is and who they are because they are so inconsistent. Mila was fighting between being human and being android, she was so unsure as to what she was and at times she would stand by being human and others, she would use her android abilities and say maybe it’s better to be an android and then would switch back completely. I was never completely sure which side Mila was on and there was no sign of her knowing who she was herself. If she has no idea who she is, how would I know? I would have at least liked to see some character development throughout and see Mila grow to become more comfortable with who she is. I feel it is lazy writing to just simply leave that to the sequel just because the book is the first in a series. If you’re going to open an issue like that in the first book, I would have at least liked to see that somehow resolved. I am okay with cliffhangers but it is very common for authors to keep it hanging like this and simply forget about it in the next book, opening up more issues and instead focusing on that while ignoring previous issues.The action was there and it was thrilling indeed but there was also too much going on so I had no idea how the place looked like because I was too involved in what was happening than the visuals. In this case, the visuals were essential to the scene so I became quite baffled as to how Mila got from this place to another because I had no idea what was actually there. I feel it’s very important to know how to execute a scene like this where you want it to be exhilarating and yet maintain the visuals because more than likely a reader is going to storm through the pages trying to find out what is going to happen next than take note of how the scene looks like. But the scene highly relied on visuals because Mila was using them and so that really confused me. So the action and thrill was there but no idea what was going on.I liked Mila 2.0 enough but wasn’t a huge fan of it because first, you have the instalove which I will never be a fan of. I didn’t like the personification of Mila’s android side and the inconsistencies in her character. Since the book was highly concentrated on Mila, I didn’t like it very much because I didn’t even like Mila. I wasn’t a big fan of the ending either, Mila had the potential to be a kick-ass heroine but she failed to live up to that.Verdict: Borrow it from the library.