A review by karin_goodreads
Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

It's Murderbot Diaries' fourth book and I'm devouring it (for a reason - the whole series is so good!). Murderbot has adventured far and wide to shed light on its own past and gather evidence of GrayCris Corporation's crimes, but now, it's time to return to those who this began with.

Ohhoo, what an action-packed story it was - reuniting with old friends, complaining about humans, sarcasm, strange emotions, badass fighting and near death situations. Seriously, I have been waiting for this!
We are back to help out the "first" crew (Dr. Mensah, specifically) and Murderbot, who definitely doesn't care, sure does a lot to help these humans. I was so giddy to see the reunion! 
Even though Murderbot itself wasn't sure how to refer to them, ART had already planted the seed that PreservationAux was Murderbot's crew, that these were Murderbot's humans. And they are! 

I was having an emotion, and I hate that.

It was fascinating to see Murderbot's internal (emotional) struggles and to see it want to win against GrayCris purely out of spite. (In hindsight, that wasn't a very good idea, but it was successful, so... I'll take that.) That did lead us to some very unfortunate circumstances in which Murderbot almost deleted itself out of existence (I blame it on the wonky risk assessment module), which would have had me sobbing at 3 am. (Guaranteed.) Thankfully, things turned out MUCH better, with everyone intact, but perhaps some were changed and some even a little broken.

It would have been hilarious if I wasn’t about to die. It was still a little hilarious.
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