Division Zero, by Matthew S. Cox

Division Zero (Division Zero #1), by Matthew S. Cox

Genre: New Adult, Paranormal, Ghosts, Cyberpunk

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

Publication: March 7, 2014, by Curiosity Quills Press

Format: ebook






Goodreads Summary: Most cops get to deal with living criminals, but Agent Kirsten Wren is not most cops.

A gifted psionic with a troubled past, Kirsten possesses a rare combination of abilities that give her a powerful weapon against spirits. In 2418, rampant violence and corporate warfare have left no shortage of angry wraiths in West City. Most exist as little more than fleeting shadows and eerie whispers in the darkness.

Kirsten is shunned by a society that does not understand psionics, feared by those who know what she can do, and alone in a city of millions. Every so often, when a wraith gathers enough strength to become a threat to the living, these same people rely on her to stop it.

Unexplained killings by human-like androids known as dolls leave the Division One police baffled, causing them to punt the case to Division Zero. Kirsten, along with her partner Dorian, wind up in the crosshairs of corporate assassins as they attempt to find out who – or what – is behind the random murders before more people die.

She tries to hold on to the belief that no one is beyond redemption as she pursues a killer desperate to claim at least one more innocent soul – that might just be hers.

Review:

 *Review copy provided by Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.*

  DNF @ 71%

 I have given the genre of cyberpunk/steampunk many tries and chances, but after reading this book, I realized that it just isn't for me. 

  Adding the concept of paranormalcy into this just hooked me right in. And I believed that there will be a hint of romance added into this as well (who doesn't want romance?) so I requested to read this and be part of the blog tour immediately. Turns out, this just wasn't the right read for me.

   I struggled while reading this book. For its sake, I wanted to really like it and enjoy it. But having a psionic cop solving who's killing random people just isn't my thing, I guess. I usually fall for these type of mysteries-- murder and paranormalcy together equal a great deal of enjoyment for me. Was it because this falls in the New Adult genre? I don't know, but the concept and plot really unsatisfied me.

    

    This was about Kirsten Wren, who is a gifted psionic cop who's living an abnormal life. It is the future. In 2418, a violent rampage has left almost no wraiths in West City, but there is more left than just few shadows and whispers. When mysterious random murders by human-like androids begin turning up all over the city, Kirsten and her partner Dorian are up to find out who's behind all of this and why.

     Books that have incorporated androids such as Cinder by Marissa Meyer have really left me stunned. Androids are such an interesting exotic topic that rarely exists in the literature world today, and many people such as myself are left wanting the books that incorporate the subject more than anything. The androids in this book didn't feel real. Of course, there isn't such thing as human-killing androids, but in a book that has this kind of atmosphere should really pick up the pace and give us that feel that gets us to believe that the world we're in really exists and that we're currently in it when reading the book. So therefore, the world-building in this book absolutely sucked, in my opinion.

      The plot was another thing. In the beginning to about 25% of the book, everything was starting off great. I really liked the story and how the author introduced the characters and events to us, and everything felt pretty real. As we moved on quickly towards the middle, I just lost track of everything that was going on and just got bored. Everything moved on to be slow-paced and I realized that the idea just wasn't for me. At that point, I didn't know how I was going to stand to complete the novel. I stood on reading until the seventy-one percentage, and then just let it go because it was just too horrible. So part of the 1.5 star rating goes to that advantage in the beginning. But the rest disappointed me because of the no-point sucky plot. No twists were incorporated that stunned me, and everything was predictable.

     

           

          Kirsten was just a regular clueless protagonist. She was a good fighter and thinker, but I didn't really like her personality. She was too stuffed up and in that 71% that I read, I didn't feel like I got to meet her. She differed from other characters that I liked. 

           I really ended up liking Dorian, the only other good thing in this book. He was the sugar and spice of the book and came to be a really good friend to Kirsten. I totally ship: Korian!
 

           So sadly, I didn't even care to find out the ending of this book. It disappointed me too much and left me not wanting anything to do with these characters or storyline. Unrecommended to YA readers because it's not what we're really looking for in a book. It was very unenjoyable.