LIFEL1K3 (Lifelike #1)

LifeL1K3 is set in the future in a post-apocalyptic United States. Robots in the form of automatas, machinas, and logikas are governed by three laws, the laws of robotics, and are considered no more than slaves. Lifelikes are androids that seem human in every single way except that they have found a way to ignore the three laws making them extremely dangerous and subsequently illegal. The story starts off with a heart-gripping prologue and transitions from current day events to past transitions for a few chapters as the story of how dangerous Lifelikes can be is shown in graphic detail.

I did love that the main protagonist, Eve, was a scrappy chica with a heart of gold for her grandfather and those that she cared for. I adored the relationship between Eve and her bestie Lemon, they were a sisterhood unto themselves and I loved it. They had great banter and even though the slang wasnt my favorite part, they had a way about them that was unique and original. Wow on the robotic characters as well. They were amazingly done and how the story played out with the rules and roles, just wow!

There is a lot to love in this story with its action, adventure, robotics, cyborgs, and even a kraken too! I will admit that I found myself being slightly disappointed with some of the obvious twists that occurred because I saw them coming from a mile away but I kept reading to just make sure I was right. The romance was cute and had its swoony moments for sure but it was not the main focus of the story. I did like that with each twist the story became darker and darker, that really amped up the twists that kept occurring until the end.

To me, LifeL1k3 is about love, oppression, freedom, and choices. It is also about what does it mean to be free and what determines those who deserve freedom, especially freedom of choice. There was so much to enjoy in this story! The ending though, I am still hurting from the ending. Even though I did not like it at all, it was the right ending because it was honest. I loved it and I hated it in equal measure. Overall, if you like spunky young adult characters with hilarious robotic sidekicks and dont mind a little heart ripping, then I definitely recommend LifeL1k3 to you!

This review is based on a complimentary book I received from NetGalley. It is an honest and voluntary review. The complimentary receipt of it in no way affected my review or rating.

For the most part, Likelife was a just okay type of read that could have been amazing. It has an interesting world and decent characters in a sci-fi adventure, which is something I thought was at least interesting. But overall, its nothing special and in a way, I felt disappointed by this book that screams average and already been done.

The characters were passable, but I wished they had a bit more distinct personalities. Eve had the most development, and has interesting growth, though I thought she made some odd choices in the second half that didnt make too much sense to me, though she makes up for a lot of them at the end. Lemon has an interesting background, but I felt like I didnt get to know her at all until near the end, and before then, she felt sorta there. Ezekiel was confusing, and I didnt know what to think. The villains sadly have next to zero development until the last third, which is a shame, because their plan is actually somewhat intriguing. I did like Cricket and Kaiser, but they needed more love with how they break up the dark mood of the story overall. The romance went way too fast, I didnt like the progression and it falls into the YA trap of forever love. It was so over the top, considering that theres two more books to go. <spoiler>I also predicted that something bad would happen to Ana/Eve or Ezekiel right after that event and I was right.</spoiler>

The world building was the most frustrating part of the book. Theres a lot of interesting nuggets of a post apocalypse world full of robots, and feels like its developed to an extent, but its so scatter shot and I got lost quite a bit. Theres little to zero context to a lot of the elements in the world until much later (if at all). Things and events are happening, but the impact is lessened due to the conflict not being built up as properly as it should have been. Threats are announced, but then quickly forgotten. The story starts with a bunch of things dumped on the reader and made the first few chapters a slog. The pacing for most of the book was all over the place; theres a whole section where the characters are supposed to be in urgent danger and they just spend a lot of time talking. Maybe its me, but Im not a fan of Kristoffs prose style, its easy to read, yet easy to get lost at the same time. The slang also doesnt help as again, lack of context.

While I was reading, I kept thinking about other books that did this sort of plot line much better. Books like The Kingdom and The Body Electric. It didnt bring much new to the table to make a common story fresh and screamed nothing special. To be fair, while most of the book wasnt too engaging and I was slogging through at some portions, I liked the Ana sections in the past and the last quarter or so was interesting with the plot twists and I had to know what was going on, especially with the ending. If the whole book was like that, I would have easily gave it at least 4 stars. Still on the fence if I continue the series at some point.

This book really packs a punch! I knew that it would! I have loved all of Jay Kristoff’s other books that I have read and when he described it as being “Romeo and Juliet meets Bladerunner, while Fury Road plays a guitar solo in the background” I knew that I had to read it. I think that Lifelike may be my favorite book of his thus far. It was action-packed but didn’t skimp on the emotional punch either!
I know that the description may make it sound like there is too much going on but I promise that is not the case. Some may be turned off by the Romeo and Juliet reference but it doesn’t play into that side of things as much as one might think. I know because I am tired of those kinds of stories because I feel that they have been played out. Eve and Ezekiel are each very strong characters in their own right. They are trying to figure out where they fit in the world and/or how the world could be changed to fit them. Everything begins to go haywire once they meet and the fast pace doesn’t let up throughout the book. I enjoyed all of the characters. I found that they each had a purpose in the plot of the book and each had some kind of background to them that was revealed. I appreciated this because it could get messy to flesh out so many characters but Jay Kristoff found a way to organically do it so that the book was fluid and packed with description. I love the world that the author created. It was very different and I’ll admit that the slang tripped me up a bit. I did find the language a little annoying at times but you get used to it and everything else in the book more than makes up or it!
There were some things that happened that I had guessed would take place but others that I found a little confusing. I think that everything will be explained in book 2. I have a feeling that things are about to get bonkers!

8.5 /10
I’m a recent convert to Sci-fi books (recently loving Aurora Rising and being obsessed with Illuminae Files). So even though this didn’t sound my cup of tea, I thought I’d give it a go, plus Jay Kristoff is now an auto buy author for me.

This was more the robot/futuristic/cyborg part of sci-fi and I’m just not that into it (a bit like the animalistic/tricking Faeries genre) it’s just not really my thing. But if it’s yours then you will love this.

Because of this is took me a little longer to get into this as it opens on a robot-on-robot showdown. However as soon as it became more character based I couldn’t put it down! It’s well paced and well written.

You’ve got a good mix of characters, the headstrong Eve, the funny best friend Lemon, cute cyberdog Kaiser, grumpy grandad and too perfect Ezekiel.
But the best is Cricket the loyal, sarcastic robot. Is it just me or is he a sassy Wall-E? Love the LITTLE guy. I also like when the ‘bad guys’ have more depth to them than just being evil and Kristoff does that well in this book.

As with all Kristoffs books there were great twists- oh my god- I think I’ve worked out one and then suddenly there’s like three more! Although I wasn’t completely sold on the ending I can’t wait to see what happens in Dev1at3

It took me much longer than I’d like to admit to realise the book is clearly inspired by the Romanov family in Russia and how they died. Hell even Romanov is an anagram of Monrova and the names are very similar!! I love that. It’s not a retelling but draws from the real life family and events.

Whilst I do like it when authors create little language quirks for their world’s, I found some of the lanaguge overused (fizzy/fug) and I do cringe at the term ‘my bestest’.

Overall really good read (but nothing on the Illuminae files!) It’s main fault is that it’s not my favourite genre but I still enjoyed it. Will definitely be grabbing the sequel.

In this futuristic tale Eve, along with her best friend Lemon, her robot sidekick Cricket, and blitzhund Kaiser, lives on the Scrap – a wasteland of junk. She scrapes a living together by fighting in the WarDome against machines. When Eve wages her entire savings on one bout to enable her to win enough to buy medicine for her grandpa, she suffers shock defeat but finds out she possesses a power which will label her as a Deviant. Unfortunately everyone has seen this on the televised bout. On her way home, she finds an android in the wreckage of a plane crash who calls her ‘Ana’ which sets off a series of fractured memories. This android, Ezekiel, holds the key to Eve finding out who she is and what happened in her past.

First of all, did anyone get reading this get major ‘based on Romanov assassinations’ vibes from this? The executions, the names (Nicholas, Alex, Marie, Ana)? That’s all I could think when I read it. Anyway, the book itself is rather good – shades of Robot Wars, Mad Max, and Terminator. The characters are high on snark, and the action pretty much never lets up. For all that, I just found something missing for me, I didn’t feel emotionally engaged. Currently undecided on whether I will read the next one or not.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member