I was really really caught up with the dystopian trends back when Divergent and Hunger Games first came out, and a few months ago, I saw this book sitting on the “new” shelf, and I felt drawn to it. Rebel Seoul was your average futuristic dystopian novel, and although I didn’t really resonate with it, it was still pretty good, and filled with amazing ideas.
*This post may contain spoilers; honestly I don’t think it has any major spoilers.
Title: Rebel Seoul
Author: Axie Oh
Series: None (I believe?)
Rating: ★★★
Re-Readability★★ (would reread for ending)
After a great war, the East Pacific is in ruins. In brutal Neo Seoul, where status comes from success in combat, ex-gang member Lee Jaewon is a talented pilot rising in the ranks of the academy. Abandoned as a kid in the slums of Old Seoul by his rebel father, Jaewon desires only to escape his past and prove himself a loyal soldier of the Neo State.
When Jaewon is recruited into the most lucrative weapons development division in Neo Seoul, he is eager to claim his best shot at military glory. But the mission becomes more complicated when he meets Tera, a test subject in the government’s supersoldier project. Tera was trained for one purpose: to pilot one of the lethal God Machines, massive robots for a never-ending war.
With secret orders to report on Tera, Jaewon becomes Tera’s partner, earning her reluctant respect. But as respect turns to love, Jaewon begins to question his loyalty to an oppressive regime that creates weapons out of humans. As the project prepares to go public amidst rumors of a rebellion, Jaewon must decide where he stands—as a soldier of the Neo State, or a rebel of the people.
Pacific Rim meets Korean action dramas in this mind-blowing, New Visions Award-winning science fiction debut.
Thoughts:
This was a thrilling dystopia for sure, but the characters didn’t really resonate with me. Despite that, everything that unfolded was definitely very futuristic and cool. This creative novel was amazing at the romance, but the development was a little subtle, and I honestly didn’t really see it until they were a little into it. All in all, a very decent dystopia and sci-fi novel.
The Best Parts:
The best part that I can remember is the ending. The ending was so high paced and so awesome that I was literally so mind-blown and caught up in all the emotions that were portrayed at the end.
The OTP was adorable and really out of my league XD. As stated in the synopsis, at first Jaewon, the male lead befriended Tera for his own purposes, but later fell in love. Their relationship was really special. Tera made the relationship get a different take, while Jaewon’s emotions and personality really made the relationship relatable (or as relatable as you can get when you’re still single I guess lol). Jaewon and Tera’s relationship was more about uncovering who Tera was. Throughout the novel, their relationship deepened and that really made the ending so much stronger.
Love is a country. It’s vast and endless and full of an unbreakable hope.
I want to show her that life isn’t made of battles to be won. That life isn’t about winning or losing, and that her existence doesn’t need to be something she needs to deserve.
There are so many people who need her. I’m just the one person who wants her.
In this futuristic society, the stakes are so much higher than any of us nowadays could really ever anticipate. The idea of actually taking a life whenever someone erred was a little scary yet fascinating to me, since I feel like this novel brought it into a different and starker perspective when compared to other dystopian novels like Divergent.
Meh:
As stated in the synopsis, this book was a little like a Korean drama, and I can REALLY see the Korean action drama part in the ending, but in the other areas, it just reminded me of your typical slow-paced yet insightful drama. The slow-pacing was deliberate though, so I never felt like I had to put it down, but a fast-pacing would have really brought this book to its highest potential, since the plot really did revolve around high-paced action moments.
Summin’ It Up:
Overall, the novel was pretty good and had a lot of potential. Loved the “superpowers” element to the entire novel. The ending was literally THE BEST though. I guess it might have also been because I wasn’t expecting much more by that point, since the book seemed to have already built itself up, but man was I wrong!
Recommendations:
Warcross by Marie Lu (will be reviewed in the future)
- This novel was also a futuristic dystopia, focusing on gaming instead of super-soldiers. Both had a lot of action moments, and a lot of love and some treachery (in Rebel Seoul, I saw the treachery as more from a different side couple). While Warcross wasn’t really set in a Pacific Rim type place, the female lead went through a lot of hardships and was less privileged which forced her to change.
Renegades by Marissa Meyer (will be reviewed in future)
- Renegades was another amazing futuristic sci-fi that focused on people with powers, and the inherent good-evil type conflict between normal people and “cool” people. This was an amazing read, full of plots and twists.
The recommendations list will continue being updated as I discover more and more books! And if you guys know any books similar to this book, I can also add it to this list 🙂
Thanks for reading! Please let me know if there is anything I can do to improve and talk to me in the comments if there’s a book you recommend or if there’s a book you would like me to review! 🙂 I will read/review YA novels or Chinese novels/translations! No spoilers please in comments!
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