Alex Mercer\u2019s childhood has been far from idyllic. Orphaned as a child in southeastern Europe and eventually landing in the U.S., she endured a horrific foster family experience before ending up with a couple living in the San Francisco Bay area, who\u2019d recently emigrated from South Korea. Now 18 and a freshman in computer engineering at the University of Michigan, the hacker prodigy finds herself in a potentially deadly situation. Not only is she being blackmailed by a corrupt mayoral candidate who wants her to manipulate voting results, but a cyber terrorist, about to unleash a \u201cdigital plague\u201d on the world, has her in his sights because of her online meddling. The cyber terrorist, nicknamed Cipher, obsesses over making America pay for their involvement in Bosnia decades earlier and the horrors they facilitated on the country\u2019s populace, which included Cipher\u2019s family. His ultimate goal is simple: \u201cto see the world burn.\u201d As Alex desperately tries to stop Cipher\u2019s master plan before he kills her and those close to her, she begins to put together seemingly disparate puzzle pieces, some of which include an army of North Korean hackers, a top-secret branch of the U.S. Cyber Command, and jaw-dropping revelations about her biological parents.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no question that Michaels delivers the goods to thriller fans. From the very first page, the pacing is pedal-to-the-metal, and the tension is palpable throughout. Alex\u2019s paranoia bleeds through the pages: \u201cHer attacker could be any of the people wandering the campus, searching for her. Ready to pull the trigger. Assuming they had a trigger. For all she knew, they\u2019d dispatch her through more stealthy means like poison, or worse, a shiv wielded by a seemingly innocent passerby, the cold steel hidden beneath a benign smile.\u201d But the real power here is Michaels\u2019 character development. Alex\u2019s complicated relationship with her foster parents and her revered Aunt Min\u2014coupled with her own struggles to find herself and her place in the world\u2014make her a three-dimensional, undeniably endearing hero. Additionally, there\u2019s a subtle philosophical thread throughout, which gives the reading experience a profundity: \u201cHate exists not as a permanent scar upon the heart, but as a challenge, a call to action for each of us. It is an invitation to embark on the most noble of journeys: To reach out with an open heart, to listen with a compassionate ear, and to build, with the bricks of our shared humanity, a world where love triumphs over hate, understanding overcomes fear, and unity replaces division. This is the path to a brighter, kinder future\u2014a world not of hate, but of hope.\u201d Lastly, the author savvily leaves Alex, and other supporting characters, at a natural jumping-off point. Future installments could go in countless directions and be set anywhere in the world. The one minor criticism is that some plot twists are a bit predictable, especially for those who read a lot of thrillers.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alex Mercer\u2019s childhood has been far from idyllic. Orphaned as a child in southeastern Europe and eventually landing in the U.S., she endured a horrific foster family experience before ending up with a couple living in the San Francisco Bay area, who\u2019d recently emigrated from South Korea. Now 18 and a freshman in computer engineering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}