Book Review: Firebreak (ARC)

Author: Nicole Kornher-Stace
Release date: May 4th 2021
Date read: April 29th- May 5th 2021
Book format: Ebook
Star rating: 5 out of 5

Synopsis on Goodreads

Like everyone else she knows, Mallory is an orphan of the corporate war. As a child, she lost her parents, her home, and her entire building in an airstrike. As an adult, she lives in a cramped hotel room with eight other people, all of them working multiple jobs to try to afford water and make ends meet. And the job she’s best at is streaming a popular VR war game. The best part of the game isn’t killing enemy combatants, though—it’s catching in-game glimpses of SpecOps operatives, celebrity supersoldiers grown and owned by Stellaxis, the corporation that runs the America she lives in.

Until a chance encounter with a SpecOps operative in the game leads Mal to a horrifying discovery: the real-life operatives weren’t created by Stellaxis. They were kids, just like her, who lost everything in the war, and were stolen and augmented and tortured into becoming supersoldiers. The world worships them, but the world believes a lie.

The company controls every part of their lives, and defying them puts everything at risk—her water ration, her livelihood, her connectivity, her friends, her life—but she can’t just sit on the knowledge. She has to do something—even if doing something will bring the wrath of the most powerful company in the world down upon her.

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*I received this ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I absolutely loved this book. It had me gripped from the first chapter and I feel if I wasn’t busy with work the past couple of days I could have easily have read this in 1 sitting. I kinda wish we had a little more background information on some of the characters but it was amazing regardless.

Firebreak was a refreshing read in that there was absolute zero romance in this apart from a mention of Mal’s crush for 22. I can’t tell the amount of books I’ve read this year that all have an element of romance and it didn’t really hit me until I read this.

Nicole kornher-Stace did an amazing job with this book and it’s the first of her books that I’ve read so I’m looking forward to diving in to her other works and possibly adding another author to my ‘top authors’ list.

I 100% recommend to this to anyone and everyone. Definitely a book I would re-read and one that I would absolutely buy if I didn’t receive the ARC! 🤩