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deliciouslycarnalcourtships's review against another edition
5.0
If you are remotely at all interested in dystopian stories, this series is for you. It is a cross between Hunger Games and Shatter Me and will leave you dying for the next book in the series.
Lune Tatum is stuck in a city she wants no part of. The worst part, it's run by her adoptive father who is as cruel as they come. In order to escape she has to win. Winning was never a problem until Bren shows up and turns her whole world upside down. Now Lune must chose between being free and ultimately trapping Bren.
The character development and pace of the book is nothing short of awesome. Becky does an incredible job of sucking you in and making you attached to the characters and their well being. the sarcastic banter and sass from Lune will leave you cheering her on throughout the entire book. Not only do you want her to succeed you want her relationships to as well. While Bren is basically as perfect as they come, I found myself drawn to Ryker. He doesn't make much of an appearance in this book but I am hoping that changes later in the series.
Warning, (although the next book is out so you can just start it immediately), it leaves on a cliffhanger. One that will make you want to start reading the next book immediately! So you should go do that.
Lune Tatum is stuck in a city she wants no part of. The worst part, it's run by her adoptive father who is as cruel as they come. In order to escape she has to win. Winning was never a problem until Bren shows up and turns her whole world upside down. Now Lune must chose between being free and ultimately trapping Bren.
The character development and pace of the book is nothing short of awesome. Becky does an incredible job of sucking you in and making you attached to the characters and their well being. the sarcastic banter and sass from Lune will leave you cheering her on throughout the entire book. Not only do you want her to succeed you want her relationships to as well. While Bren is basically as perfect as they come, I found myself drawn to Ryker. He doesn't make much of an appearance in this book but I am hoping that changes later in the series.
Warning, (although the next book is out so you can just start it immediately), it leaves on a cliffhanger. One that will make you want to start reading the next book immediately! So you should go do that.
jlamontbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Ractive is the first in a YA dystopian romance series set in a future USA where all civilization has fallen and wild beasts and monsters hunt the forests. Our story takes place in Tatum City. Within it, the population is split between the poor and the elite. And the only way to become an elite or earn your freedom out of the city is to battle and win in 3 competitions known as the Elite Trials. Each trial has 1 winner, where competitors battle to the death or desperately try to survive the hardships and dangers within.
Our story follows Lune Tatum, the adoptive daughter of the cruel leader of Tatum. Although Lune lives her life in luxury as an elite, she suffers physical abuse at the hands of her father. As such, she decides to compete in the Elite Trials, risking her life for the chance at freedom. But when Lune is given the responsibility of training a new competitor, Brendon, for the trials, she suspects her father might be up to no good.
Ractive brings us a beautiful world of forests and rivers, and provides all the right pieces of broken, dystopian society that readers crave from this genre. It’s also a romance, with this 1st book more focused on the development of the relationship between Lune and Bren.
The initial several chapters were captivating, and I found myself hooked to know more about Tatum City and the Elite Trails. But as I got about 35% of the way through the book, I found myself no longer interested and wanted to DNF it. I’m a completionist, however, so I pushed through. As I came into the 2nd half of the book, I was more entertained and was once again turning pages like crazy until the end.
My thoughts are mixed on this one. The writing was great, but I just wasn’t in love with our heroine. I imagined Lune to be a total bad ass but was disappointed when she rarely kicked butt and usually needed someone to save her. I did love Bren, however. His character was funny, sweet, and walked the line of bad-boy and not-a-bad-boy deliciously well.
For me, the romance was lacking and burned way too slow. I’m not a fan of slow burn, however, so this book might be for you if you’re a fan of this type of romance.
Reactive is a dystopian, but I hungered for so much more information. I wanted to understand why Tatum City existed, why the Trails were created, and how the world got turned upside down. Sadly, none of these questions got answered, and only more questions appeared as I came to the end of the story. There are 2 more books in the series, however, and many of these questions might be answered within them.
I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys slow burn romances and dystopian settings. The Elite Trails have a Hunger Games-vibe to them, so those who enjoyed that trilogy might be interested in giving this series a try. I will also note that the romance is very benign and soft, and there is virtually no cursing that I can remember, so it is appropriate for a younger YA audience.
Our story follows Lune Tatum, the adoptive daughter of the cruel leader of Tatum. Although Lune lives her life in luxury as an elite, she suffers physical abuse at the hands of her father. As such, she decides to compete in the Elite Trials, risking her life for the chance at freedom. But when Lune is given the responsibility of training a new competitor, Brendon, for the trials, she suspects her father might be up to no good.
Ractive brings us a beautiful world of forests and rivers, and provides all the right pieces of broken, dystopian society that readers crave from this genre. It’s also a romance, with this 1st book more focused on the development of the relationship between Lune and Bren.
The initial several chapters were captivating, and I found myself hooked to know more about Tatum City and the Elite Trails. But as I got about 35% of the way through the book, I found myself no longer interested and wanted to DNF it. I’m a completionist, however, so I pushed through. As I came into the 2nd half of the book, I was more entertained and was once again turning pages like crazy until the end.
My thoughts are mixed on this one. The writing was great, but I just wasn’t in love with our heroine. I imagined Lune to be a total bad ass but was disappointed when she rarely kicked butt and usually needed someone to save her. I did love Bren, however. His character was funny, sweet, and walked the line of bad-boy and not-a-bad-boy deliciously well.
For me, the romance was lacking and burned way too slow. I’m not a fan of slow burn, however, so this book might be for you if you’re a fan of this type of romance.
Reactive is a dystopian, but I hungered for so much more information. I wanted to understand why Tatum City existed, why the Trails were created, and how the world got turned upside down. Sadly, none of these questions got answered, and only more questions appeared as I came to the end of the story. There are 2 more books in the series, however, and many of these questions might be answered within them.
I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys slow burn romances and dystopian settings. The Elite Trails have a Hunger Games-vibe to them, so those who enjoyed that trilogy might be interested in giving this series a try. I will also note that the romance is very benign and soft, and there is virtually no cursing that I can remember, so it is appropriate for a younger YA audience.
_camk_'s review against another edition
2.0
+Interesting premise (but it fell flat).
-The mystery/paranormal aspect of the book was thrown in once or twice; what was the point?
-Lune. She was a whiplash character; meant to super strong female who has been training for years and yet Bren was always doing the saving. Half the book was her just being weird and piney about Bren.
-The romance in this book is just so meh. Bren is just a handsome cardboard character.
-The mystery/paranormal aspect of the book was thrown in once or twice; what was the point?
-Lune. She was a whiplash character; meant to super strong female who has been training for years and yet Bren was always doing the saving. Half the book was her just being weird and piney about Bren.
-The romance in this book is just so meh. Bren is just a handsome cardboard character.
amberb0413's review against another edition
5.0
If you love a fast-paced, strong female lead, twist and turns kind of story, YOU MUST READ REACTIVE!
Lune Tatum/Avery is a fierce, brave, and headstrong female lead and is every bit the girl I’d hope to be if I were in her situation. She is groomed and trained by the Elites.
That all changes when Bren comes to the city and she is tasked with training him. Can she stay loyal to the trials or will the boy she’s supposed to hate cause her to falter off course?
Lune Tatum/Avery is a fierce, brave, and headstrong female lead and is every bit the girl I’d hope to be if I were in her situation. She is groomed and trained by the Elites.
That all changes when Bren comes to the city and she is tasked with training him. Can she stay loyal to the trials or will the boy she’s supposed to hate cause her to falter off course?
amberb0413's review against another edition
5.0
If you love a fast-paced, strong female lead, twist and turns kind of story, YOU MUST READ REACTIVE!
Lune Tatum/Avery is a fierce, brave, and headstrong female lead and is every bit the girl I’d hope to be if I were in her situation. She is groomed and trained by the Elites.
That all changes when Bren comes to the city and she is tasked with training him. Can she stay loyal to the trials or will the boy she’s supposed to hate cause her to falter off course?
Lune Tatum/Avery is a fierce, brave, and headstrong female lead and is every bit the girl I’d hope to be if I were in her situation. She is groomed and trained by the Elites.
That all changes when Bren comes to the city and she is tasked with training him. Can she stay loyal to the trials or will the boy she’s supposed to hate cause her to falter off course?
literary_snowflakes's review against another edition
3.0
Decent story…great for younger teens
Okay, so I realize that as someone in their 30s that read dystopian YA years and years ago when it was becoming popular, my opinion is going to be a little skewed. I read so many dystopian YA novels that many of them were starting to feel a bit repetitive and took a very long break from them. Now I’m dipping my toes back in and I feel like this book was missing something.
The main female character Lune is one that I couldn’t really relate to. I was rooting for her (because who doesn’t want the protagonist to win) but I feel like there was almost too much happening with her. Too many injuries to where she shouldn’t even be alive, much less moving, but yet her determination just kind of made up for it? Brendan (Bren) also kinda just pissed me off because he was cryptic, always confident in his abilities, and seemed to really not be bad at anything.
There are many parallels that one could make between this book and The Hunger Games (THG) This one did feel more like a romance/love story with the game of survival as a secondary focus whereas THG was heavy on the survival with the romance/love story being secondary.
The fact that this novel is called Reactive is very descriptive of how Lune behaves. She reacts based on instinct and impulsivity. Her emotions constantly fluctuate and her internal ramblings are mostly comprised of a jumbled mess (which aptly describes me as a teenager and sometimes present day me as well).
The world and how it operates in this book kept me confused the entire time. Maybe I was trying to read too fast, maybe it just didn’t make sense in my head, but I’m hoping that the next book will shine some light on a few things. Line has been isolated in this city for several years and her only focus was to train to complete the trials and earn her freedom. She has no concept on life outside of the city and neither does the reader. It is a bit slow to start but I’d say it was about 100 pages in that I really started getting invested into the story.
This book focuses more on Lune and Bren’s relationship more so than I expected. Though this is YA, I definitely feel it’s more geared toward and younger teen age group. There’s no foul language or anything more romantic than kissing, but there is a great deal of violence described as well as different triggers that lead to descriptions of panic that may affect some readers. If you read The Hunger Games or Divergent, you’ll be okay with this book.
Okay, so I realize that as someone in their 30s that read dystopian YA years and years ago when it was becoming popular, my opinion is going to be a little skewed. I read so many dystopian YA novels that many of them were starting to feel a bit repetitive and took a very long break from them. Now I’m dipping my toes back in and I feel like this book was missing something.
The main female character Lune is one that I couldn’t really relate to. I was rooting for her (because who doesn’t want the protagonist to win) but I feel like there was almost too much happening with her. Too many injuries to where she shouldn’t even be alive, much less moving, but yet her determination just kind of made up for it? Brendan (Bren) also kinda just pissed me off because he was cryptic, always confident in his abilities, and seemed to really not be bad at anything.
There are many parallels that one could make between this book and The Hunger Games (THG) This one did feel more like a romance/love story with the game of survival as a secondary focus whereas THG was heavy on the survival with the romance/love story being secondary.
The fact that this novel is called Reactive is very descriptive of how Lune behaves. She reacts based on instinct and impulsivity. Her emotions constantly fluctuate and her internal ramblings are mostly comprised of a jumbled mess (which aptly describes me as a teenager and sometimes present day me as well).
The world and how it operates in this book kept me confused the entire time. Maybe I was trying to read too fast, maybe it just didn’t make sense in my head, but I’m hoping that the next book will shine some light on a few things. Line has been isolated in this city for several years and her only focus was to train to complete the trials and earn her freedom. She has no concept on life outside of the city and neither does the reader. It is a bit slow to start but I’d say it was about 100 pages in that I really started getting invested into the story.
This book focuses more on Lune and Bren’s relationship more so than I expected. Though this is YA, I definitely feel it’s more geared toward and younger teen age group. There’s no foul language or anything more romantic than kissing, but there is a great deal of violence described as well as different triggers that lead to descriptions of panic that may affect some readers. If you read The Hunger Games or Divergent, you’ll be okay with this book.
lunarelle's review against another edition
5.0
I hadn't anticipated this book. Despite my soul-sister recommending it to me, I delved into it with some apprehension, as I've been disappointed by a lot of books over the past couple of years: more finished on my DNF pile than in my read pile.
But this one, no. This one kept me going. Despite wanting to stay detached, I found myself more and more immersed in the story and wanting to know what happened with Lune.
She's a good character, written in such a way that you're able to identify with her. I may no longer be eighteen, but I remember what I was like back then, and her reactions were on point: not too adult, but not entirely childish, either. The author struck a good balance between the two, and I enjoyed it.
As for the plot, it's a good one. Easy to follow, yet not so simple as to bore you. I somewhat anticipated the ending, but that only makes me want to read the next book--which I'm just about to do. I just wanted to leave a small review here.
All in all, 4.75 stars: I was very happy with it.
And now, on to the next book!
But this one, no. This one kept me going. Despite wanting to stay detached, I found myself more and more immersed in the story and wanting to know what happened with Lune.
She's a good character, written in such a way that you're able to identify with her. I may no longer be eighteen, but I remember what I was like back then, and her reactions were on point: not too adult, but not entirely childish, either. The author struck a good balance between the two, and I enjoyed it.
As for the plot, it's a good one. Easy to follow, yet not so simple as to bore you. I somewhat anticipated the ending, but that only makes me want to read the next book--which I'm just about to do. I just wanted to leave a small review here.
All in all, 4.75 stars: I was very happy with it.
And now, on to the next book!
baddecisionsbookclub's review
5.0
Please, sir. May I have some more, sir? I LOVED THIS! Dystopian novels will always hold a special place in my heart, and so far, this series is no different! I am always a fan of a fallen world and a competition to better the characters lives, but throw in horse-like creatures and this horse girl will be all in. I loved the trials and all of the training they entailed. I loved having the big bad be our MCs adopted father and the love interest be the boy who helped kidnap her when she was a child.
I knew going into it that she wasn't going to win, that there would be some twist that Renold threw into the plans that would make it so she was still under his thumb in the end. I still want to know who betrayed Lune. I am really hoping that it wasn't Ash, and possibly thinking it is Ryker because he always seems to be around when things happen. Though I'm holding out hope that he will be an ally!
As soon as Iris was introduced, it was obvious that this was going to turn out to be someone important to Lune, and I was betting on Iris being her sister, so I'm glad that I was correct! Lune's relationship with Freedom was one of my favorite parts of this story as I grew up with horses and know the kind of bond you can have with one, so it broke my heart when she had to whip the mare to get through the final obstacle. I'm really hoping for a reunion between those two in the next book because I want Freedom to gain her freedom as well.
After seeing how the villagers and lessers were treated, I was no longer hoping for Lune to earn her freedom but for her to stay and help all of the people gain freedom. I'm excited to see what happens next, now that she is having to choose between keeping her sister alive or keeping Bren alive. I'm hoping that Lune gets to see her mom again, so here I go on to the next one!
Ooooh, one more thing! I loved the title and how it describes Lune's behavior! She is always reacting to everything around her and not taking the initiative to change things for herself (besides training that is), but she spends so much of her time being afraid and reacting to her surroundings instead of fighting back. So I'm hoping with the next book that we see her character grow, especially since it is called Adaptive!
Rating: 5⭐
I knew going into it that she wasn't going to win, that there would be some twist that Renold threw into the plans that would make it so she was still under his thumb in the end. I still want to know who betrayed Lune. I am really hoping that it wasn't Ash, and possibly thinking it is Ryker because he always seems to be around when things happen. Though I'm holding out hope that he will be an ally!
As soon as Iris was introduced, it was obvious that this was going to turn out to be someone important to Lune, and I was betting on Iris being her sister, so I'm glad that I was correct! Lune's relationship with Freedom was one of my favorite parts of this story as I grew up with horses and know the kind of bond you can have with one, so it broke my heart when she had to whip the mare to get through the final obstacle. I'm really hoping for a reunion between those two in the next book because I want Freedom to gain her freedom as well.
After seeing how the villagers and lessers were treated, I was no longer hoping for Lune to earn her freedom but for her to stay and help all of the people gain freedom. I'm excited to see what happens next, now that she is having to choose between keeping her sister alive or keeping Bren alive. I'm hoping that Lune gets to see her mom again, so here I go on to the next one!
Ooooh, one more thing! I loved the title and how it describes Lune's behavior! She is always reacting to everything around her and not taking the initiative to change things for herself (besides training that is), but she spends so much of her time being afraid and reacting to her surroundings instead of fighting back. So I'm hoping with the next book that we see her character grow, especially since it is called Adaptive!
Rating: 5⭐
taylorfennerwrites's review against another edition
5.0
RtC! Out of my usual genre preference but I loved it from page 1!