Before I get too far into
talking about my thoughts on Firstlife,
I definitely need to mention that as I was reading this book, I constantly
found myself thinking about the book Divergent
by Veronica Roth and comparing this book to Divergent. Maybe that might not seem fair of me to do that, but no
matter how hard I tried to avoid comparing the two books, I just couldn’t seem
to help it a lot of the time. If you’ve read my review for Divergent, then you know that I
went into reading Divergent really
looking forward to that book, but I was ultimately incredibly underwhelmed and
disappointed by it. In my opinion, Firstlife
is very similar to Divergent in some ways;
however, Firstlife is a much better
book in the grand scheme of things.
That being said, as much I
was loved Firstlife, I’m not going to
deny that this book really confused the hell out of me at times as I was
reading it, which really made the story hard for me to follow at times. Honestly,
my overall experience with reading this book reminded me a lot of how I’ve always
thought that Lost was a really
awesome show, while also being a really weird and confusing show to watch at
times. Because Firstlife was a rather
hard story to follow and keep all the details of the story straight in my mind
as I was reading it at times, it’s definitely hard for me to describe the plot
of the book for the purpose of this review. I’m going to do my best, though.
Firstlife
is about a girl named Tenley “Ten” Lockwood who lives in a society where the
life that people are living now is referred to as “Firstlife”, while the
afterlife is referred to as the “Everlife”. People have to choose one of two
realms that they can make a contract with to live in when they die. The two
realms are Myriad, which basically values independence, happiness and
indulgence, while Troika is more about structure, equality, freedom of choice,
and standing up for what’s right. If you don’t pledge yourself to one of those
two realms, that means you’re unsigned and you’ll go to the Realm of Many Ends
when you die, which is basically the equivalent of hell. The two realms have
been at war with each other for centuries, and they both view Ten as being
special and what’s referred to as a Conduit, which means she has the ability to
help either realm win the war.
Because Ten refuses to sign
with either realm, her parents put her in an asylum where she has been for a
little over a year at the start of the book in an attempt to make her sign with
Myriad. Personally, Ten’s refusal to make a decision regarding what realm she
wants to sign with and the fact that the possibility of Ten signing with Troika
causes a lot of conflict between her and her parents is one of the ways this
book reminded me a lot of Divergent.
After all, in the society that Tris Pryor lives in, it’s viewed as a major
betrayal if a person chooses to join a different faction, rather than remaining
a part of the faction that they were raised in. Ten’s refusal to sign with
Myriad leads her father to give the doctors at the asylum his consent for them to
try and torture Ten into agreeing to sign with Myriad. The fact that her father
told them to torture Ten into signing with Myriad definitely put him in the
running to be featured in a blog post that I’m thinking about doing where I
discuss and debate which fictional characters from books that I’ve read
relatively recently have the worst parents.
Both realms send their best
agents to the asylum to try and convince Ten to sign with their realm. Troika
sends a guy named Archer Prince, and Myriad sends Killian Flynn. That really serves
as the trigger for Ten to spend pretty much the entire book trying to decide
which realm she should sign with. One of the problems that I have with this
book is that neither Troika or Myriad sound like a truly terrible place for a
person to go to when they die based on how they’re initially described at the
beginning of the book. Both places seem to have their own pros and cons, so it was
rather baffling to me that Ten was so adamant in her refusal to sign with one
of the realms when she was in the asylum. As I said, her refusal to sign with
either realm led to her being tortured by the doctors in an attempt to force
her to make a decision.
Honestly, the idea of
torturing someone into making a decision about which realm they want to spend
their “Everlife” in doesn’t seem like a very effective way to get someone to
make a decision about that. In a lot of ways the decision of which realm a
person should sign with really seemed like it should ultimately be based on
their personal preferences and what suits them best, at least at the beginning of
the book. As the book continued, there were details about both realms that were
revealed, which led to Ten’s constant indecision making a little more sense to
me. However, in the end, the only realm that seemed like a truly bad place for
a person to go to when they die is the realm of Many Ends, which is where you
go if you remain unsigned. Based on my understanding of the realm of Many Ends,
it basically seemed like it was this series’ equivalent of hell.
Personally, I really enjoyed
Ten’s interactions with the other patients in the asylum at the beginning of
the book, but namely Bow. Maybe this will seem like an odd comparison to make,
but Ten’s time at the asylum reminded me a lot of the TV show Orange is the New Black. The reason it
really reminded me a lot of Orange is the
New Black is because there were some pretty quirky characters on that show,
and there were some pretty quirky characters that were patients at the asylum.
I love Orange is the New Black, so I
really like that this book reminded me of that show. While I really enjoyed the
scenes at the asylum, I was really glad Showalter didn’t have Ten spend a large
portion of the book being there and that Ten managed to escape from the asylum
relatively early on in the book.
One of the reasons why I
think this book is a lot better than Divergent
is because it didn’t constantly feel incredibly repetitive like Divergent did. Things were constantly
changing and there were definitely a lot of twists and turns throughout the
book. With the exception of Ten going back and forth about which realm she
should pledge herself to, the story never felt all that repetitive in my
opinion.
For the record, I think that
Showalter has come up with a really great idea for a book series that definitely
has a very elaborate sense of world building to it, if this book is any
indication. However, how that world building was executed in this book definitely
could have been handled a lot better, if you ask me. As much as I liked this
book, the biggest problem that I have with it is that there are so many things
to keep track of, especially in terms of all of the characters and which
character is associated with which realm, that I constantly found this book rather
overwhelming and confusing.
Personally, I think this
book really could have benefitted from Showalter including some kind of an
index or reference guide at the back of the book that would briefly summarize
the key details regarding each of the realms, a breakdown of each of the key
characters in the book and which realm they’re associated with, as well a brief
explanation of the terms that are frequently used throughout the book. Having
read some of the reviews for Firstlife on
Amazon, I know that I’m not the only one who thinks that this would have been a
good idea. Plus, I have come across other books over the years that have done
something similar to what I’ve described. The first example that comes to mind
is the special edition version of the first four books in the Star Trek: New Frontier series by Peter
David, which has the first four books in the series together in one hardback
book. Admittedly, I never thought that the Star
Trek: New Frontier series was all that hard to follow, but the brief index
of key details regarding the series still came in handy from time to time when
I first started reading the series.
While I’m really glad that
this story had a lot of action and that it never felt incredibly repetitive
like Divergent did with the heavy
emphasis on Tris’ training as a Dauntless initiate, I feel like this book had a
little too much action and too many details to keep track of. This book really
seemed to have an insane amount of action and plot twists that constantly had
me thinking, “WTF?” like the TV show Lost
always did as I was reading the book. Unlike Lost, that wasn’t always a good
thing when it comes to Firstlife. While
I applaud Showalter for not writing Firstlife
in such a way that made the story seem slow and repetitive, I think this book really
could have benefitted from having the overall pacing of the story be just a
little bit slower once Ten escapes the asylum. Personally, I think the book
really could have also benefited from having some more quiet moments between
the characters throughout the book where they’re just interacting with each other,
which could have also provided some additional character development for the
characters, instead of it being constant action, action, action. For the
record, I do think that the book already has a decent amount of character
development, but I don’t think having a little more character development would
have hurt the story in the grand scheme of things.
Ten is a really great
character for the most part. I love that she’s a very strong person, and yet
she definitely displays some vulnerability at times. I also like that Ten has a
bit of a sarcastic side to her at times as well. While Ten’s refusal to sign
with either realm throughout the book did get a little frustrating at times, it
was also very understandable, in my opinion. Having to decide where you’re
going to spend eternity after you die is definitely a pretty big deal and not
something that I think a person living in this society should take lightly.
Without giving away too many spoilers, I like that Ten doesn’t pledge herself
to either realm until the very end of the book. Honestly, I wasn’t all that
surprised by her decision of which realm to pledge herself to, but it didn’t
really bother me since I love the writing for the final moments of the book.
Personally, I really liked
Ten’s obsession with numbers and I thought it was rather interesting, especially
given the fact that her name is Tenley and she goes by the name Ten. The only
thing about Ten’s obsession with numbers that bugged me was how she basically
used the word “Zero” as a curse word. Admittedly, I thought it was kind of cute
at first, and it reminded me of how the characters on the Syfy network’s reboot
version of Battlestar Galactica used
the word “Frak” as a substitute for the word “Fuck” on the show. However, it
did get kind of annoying and old after a while to the point where it seemed
like Ten talked in a somewhat childish manner.
I really wish that Showalter
had taken more time to develop and focus on the relationship between Killian
and Archer, who had a complicated history with each other, which was hinted at
in their email exchanges and mentioned to Ten at one point in the book. I don’t
know if it would have hurt the book more than help it, but a big part of me
wishes that Showalter had alternated between Ten, Killian and Archer’s points
of view throughout the book. I think that could have potentially helped flesh
out Killian and Archer’s relationship with each other some more. Speaking of
Killian and Archer’s email exchanges, I know that some of the people who have
reviewed the book on Amazon didn’t like that aspect of the book, but I
personally loved the emails. I kind of wish that their had been more of the
email exchanges throughout the book, which could have been one of the ways that
Showalter fleshed out the relationship between Killian and Archer more than she
actually did.
As much as I love stories
that involve a lot of romance, I’m actually very glad that there wasn’t really
much of a Killian/Ten/Archer love triangle in this book. There were definitely
some hints of a love triangle at times throughout the book, but they were
ultimately very subtle and the story didn’t really focus all that much on any
kind of romantic relationship between any of the characters in the grand scheme
of things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not entirely against the plot of a book
revolving around a love triangle if it’s handled well, but this is a YA book
and when it comes to love triangles in YA books, I’ve more often times than not
have found them to be more frustrating and exasperating than I’ve found them
interesting and compelling. In some ways, I do kind of wonder if Showalter had
downplayed all of the action and dangerous situations that the characters were
constantly in in order to focus more on a love triangle between Killian, Ten
and Archer if the story wouldn’t have felt so overwhelmingly chaotic at times. A
part of me thinks that having a prominent love triangle and some emotional
angst that could have been caused by said love triangle could have potentially
slowed down the extremely action packed nature of the book. That way all of the
action and plot twists in this book wouldn’t have been as overwhelming as it
was at times.
At the risk of potentially
annoying the people who read this review by constantly comparing Firstlife to Divergent, I should probably mention that like I have with most of
the books that I’ve reviewed so far, I listened to the audiobook version of Firstlife. Emma Galvin, who did most of
the audiobooks for the Divergent
series read most of Firstlife, while
Zachary Webber read the sections of the book that featured the email exchanges
between Archer and Killian. While I thought that Emma Galvin did a really good
job on the audiobook version of Divergent,
and I was excited when I saw that she was one of the people who worked on the
audiobook version of Firstlife, I was
especially excited when I saw that Zachary Webber was also one of the readers
for the audiobook.
As I said in my review
for E.L. James’ book Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, while I thought E.L. James’ writing for
the book itself was pretty bad, I thought that Zachary Webber did a really
fantastic job on the audiobook version of the book. There are several books
that I’ve discovered since I’ve read Grey:
Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian that I really want to read, which
I was excited to discover that Zachary Webber is either the sole reader, or one
of two readers for the audiobook versions of those books. Out of all those
books, the book that I’m probably the most excited to read is November 9 by Colleen Hoover, which
Zachary Webber read with Angela Goethals.
Getting back to the subject
of Firstlife, I thought the writing
for the sections of the book that consisted of email exchanges between Killian
and Archer was really great and full of personality. However, I thought that
Webber really did a fantastic job of injecting even more personality into those
parts of the book with his performance. The audiobook version of Firstlife is altogether great in terms
of Emma Galvin and Zachary Webber’s reading of the book, and I highly recommend
checking it out if you decide to read this book.
All things considered, Firstlife is a really good book, and a
pretty good start to the Everlife
series. Ten and all of the other main characters in the story were all very
likable and interesting. The overall premise of the series does have some
issues, but it’s still a very interesting and compelling idea. I really like
that this book really made me think about the story and which realm I would
choose to make a pledge with, if I had to make that decision. While it’s
obvious that Showalter put a lot thought and detail into the world that she has
created for the series, this book’s biggest flaw is that there are a lot of
details that reader has to keep track of to the point where it can definitely
get incredibly overwhelming and hard to follow at times. Personally, I think
that Firstlife really could have benefited
a lot from having some kind of reference guide or information index at the back
of the book. Despite my issues with this book, I’ll definitely be continuing
with the Everlife series as more
books are released in the future. I’m just hoping that the other books in the
series won’t be quite as overwhelming when it comes to developing various
aspects of the series now that the premise of the series, as well as the key
characters and important details of the series have all been established.
That being said, my final
score for Firstlife is 7.5 out of 10.
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