Review: In The Wreckage by Hailey Turner

Genre: Science-Fiction, Romance, M/M
Pages: 341
Series: Metahuman Files #1
Release Date: February 19, 2017
Publisher: Hailey Turner

    (Available on Kindle Unlimited)

I already reviewed this book last year. But you see, about a month after I read it, I binged through the other four books in the series. And I loved them, but I find it really difficult to review binge-read series. Then I’d put it off for too long and I couldn’t figure out what to write. So anyway, I reread this book a few weeks ago and I’m gonna be rereading the other four books as well. And this time, I’ll review them.

Also, I changed a lot of things in the review. So I’m not just reposting the same thing.

This book follows Jamie Callahan. It’s set in a futuristic world in with metahumans (people with superhuman abilities), and they’re kinda being used to win battles and wars (there are a lot of them going on). The Metahuman Defense Force handles national threats of the metahuman variety. Jamie is the captain of the Alpha team. He and his team all have abilities (very cool ones) and use those abilities to fight. They’re highly trained and very good at their jobs. Hence, why they’re the Alpha team. Though they tend not to get along with anyone new getting added to their team.

Kyle is a guy Jamie meets at a bar after another infuriating dinner with his father (Jamie has a complicated relationship with his family). Jamie and Kyle spend a (hot) night together and part ways. Only, Kyle turns out to be the new addition to Jamie’s team, along with his brother, Alexei.

And you’d think that a good thing; they can spend more time together, fall in love and live happily ever after. Yeah… not exactly how it goes down. Kyle and Jamie do get along, but Jamie has certain rules for himself, and hooking up with, or dating, someone he has power over (since he’s the team captain) would break a big one. It’s admirable really, his insistence on not taking advantage of anyone, but it puts a definite damper on the happily ever after.

And… I think that’s supposed to be the main plot? It’s a plot but not the plot. And that’s an issue I originally had with the book, that it didn’t seem to have the latter. The reread had changed my opinion on many things, but the lack of clarity of the main plot isn’t one of them. I mean, having read the entire series and reading this book a second time, I can see a connection between the different events that take place in the book, but it’s too loose to be cohesive. And part of the reason for that is the info-dumps.

The author is trying to tell us many things about this future world, and introduce a bunch of characters and character-relationships (like Jamie and his father). You’re bound to miss some stuff. And the ways in which certain events (team missions) are related is neither that important nor emphasized (since the events have almost as much gravity on their own and it’s their consequences that matter). So it’s easy (and expected) not to notice certain things.

Though, I did like reading the missions and I found Jamie and Kyle to be great together. All of Alpha team is great and it’s because them that a normally dull-to-read-about mission becomes interesting. Plus this book is well-written and set in a world that I would love to explore more of, since it’s right up my alley when it comes to things I like to read. The worldly angle, with the politics, the degraded natural resources, the wars, the social and economic impact, plus the superhuman element and a romance in the background… I love all of it.

So I really liked the book despite the structure which, to me, seemed like a mission followed by sex/bonding moment, followed by a mission followed by sex/bonding moment followed by… you get the point. Also, it needed more commas.

Overall, this is a good book with lots of great characters and a very intriguing setting. It shows—and this is something I noticed in A Ferry of Bones and Gold too—a world without many of the prejudices that you see in our world/time, and in a way that feels natural. It also shows the potential this series has. I should warn you though, this book is about as romance-heavy as the author gets and that it’s more of a sub-plot in the rest of the series. I, personally, love that because I don’t really read romance series’ (following a single couple) but it might bother some. I love this series and I highly recommend giving it a shot.