Review: ‘Dev1at3’ by Jay Kristoff

Lemon Fresh has seen better days.

After the climactic battle in Babel, she finds herself separated from Ezekiel and Cricket in the wastelands. Lemon’s abilities to manipulate electricity mark her as a deviate, and deadly corporate operatives are hunting her to use as a weapon in the war between BioMaas Incorporated and Daedelus Technologies. Instead, Lemon finds herself falling in with a group of fellow deviates — a band of teenagers with astonishing abilities, led by an enigmatic figure known as the Major, who may hold the secrets to Lemon’s past.

Meanwhile, Cricket finds himself in possession of the puritanical Brotherhood, a religious cult set for a head-on collision with the Major and his band. Searching for Lemon, Ezekiel finds a strange ally in an old enemy, and uncovers a plot that may see him reunited with his beloved Ana.

And inside Babel, a remade Eve hatches a plan to bring an end to the world.

Note: This book — and therefore this review, to an extent — contains spoilers for the first book in the series, so if you haven’t read that and want to, maybe check out my review of that instead.

You know those books you read that have awesome, sassy sidekick best friends, and even though the main character has romance and epic adventure on their side, you kinda love the best friend more? That’s how I felt about Lemon Fresh in Lifel1k3, the first book in this trilogy. And guess what? I got what I wanted in the sequel! Fizzy!

Lemon isn’t the only point of view character in Dev1at3 (in the same way that Eve isn’t in the first book); she shares the stage with Ezekiel and Cricket, mainly, with a few chapters featuring other characters. But she’s a big-hearted girl who doesn’t mind sharing — which, honestly, along with her brash “street face”, is why I love her.

This book shares the same high-octane pacing and twisty turny things as the first book, but because Ezekiel gets more page time, he began to feel fleshed out to me in a way that I just didn’t feel in the first book. There, he seemed to just be obsessed with Ana, whereas in the second book he finds a more substantial goal than finding his old GF: saving the world. (It probably helps that the two are related, though…) That’s the reason why I’ve given Dev1at3 half a star more than I did Lifel1ke — it was just that little bit more awesome.

Dev1at3 does end on a cliffhanger, and — although I didn’t find it as much of a kick in the teeth as I did at the end of the first book — I am totally hanging out for the third book in the series. Can I have it now, please?