Book Review: Exo by Fonda Lee

Book: Exo by Fonda Lee
Genre: YA SF
Rating:★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

It's been awhile since I read a science fiction and this one was not bad... not bad at all! :) Pretty dang good actually!

It's about Earth after an alien invasion. I'm assuming the invasion happened about our current time. There was a long 30 year war at that time, with humans trying to fight against them. However, they finally gave up and peace between the races was declared. The book takes place near Peace Day, 100 years later.

Most of the human population has just decided to go along with the rule of this alien race. Some of them have wholeheartedly embraced it. And those people have even had their children become like the aliens in a process called Hardening. They alter them biologically so they have the ability to armour themselves with an exoskelton, similar to the aliens. These people, who have gone through that process, are called Exos.

Our boy, Donovan, is 17 years old, and an Exo. He works as a soldier maintaining peace. Because there are outlying groups who are still against the aliens and want to take back the planet. They despise Exos and hate what they symbolize. Donovan's job is to search out these people and have them prosecuted.

Oh, and Donovan's dad is the Prime Liaison... the most important human job....maintaining relations between humans and the aliens.

One day, when out on patrol, things go bad, and suddenly Donovan finds himself captured by these crazy humans. And while with them, he learns about their cause and realizes that they have some pretty good ideas....

And there's a girl of course. As one of these fighting humans. There's also someone else who's in that group that quite freaks Donovan out. And he is so confused he can hardly function.

It's a great book that shows how there really is no black and white. You can see both sides of this issue. You end up rooting for everyone and you want everyone to win. It's frustrating and eye opening.

Sometimes I worry about books with a political sort of premise, but this one was okay in its presentation. It didn't get too bogged down with it.

I enjoyed the intensity of this story. Many edge of your seat moments. It did get a little slower in the middle for a bit, but soon picked up again. So yeah, I really enjoyed it! I'm wondering if this is the start to a series since it ended up with lots of places it could still go. I guess we'll see!! (Well, so I see in Goodreads that there's an Exo #1 by the title.. I guess that answers that question! Yeah, there's many things Donovan still needs to do and figure out... poor kid.)